


There But For The Grace Of God Go I

by We_Stole_Vodka_From_The_Optic



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Attempted recovery, Chronic Assholeism, Gen, Gore, Hinted torture, Impenetrability of a God, M/M, Nightmares, Pain, People being douchebags and hating themselves for it, etcetera etcetera
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-08
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-19 19:30:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/576838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/We_Stole_Vodka_From_The_Optic/pseuds/We_Stole_Vodka_From_The_Optic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What does one do when a broken, battered Norse God falls through their skylight in the middle of the night? Unfortunately for Tony Stark, he's just going to have to figure that out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Medias Res

There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part I: In Medias Res

I am terrified by this dark thing  
That sleeps in me;  
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.

-Sylvia Plath's "Elm"

It started, Tony decided, with a nightmare, as all truly terrifying and unexplainably horrific things do, because in reality monsters only ever lived in the spaces between a head and a brain, and sleeping always had a nice tendency to rile up such monsters until they became an overwhelming and nearly unnecessary burden.

Which was why, after Afghanistan - and Tony had essentially split up his life into Before-Afghanistan and After-Afghanistan -he'd decided two things.

One: Coffee was truly a blessing from God.

Two: Eight-Hour Sleep was pretty impractical and fairly needless and most of the time it was just better to stay up and tinker with circuit boards and wires and anything else that could be pulled apart and put back together again.

Eventually, though, the nightmares came less often and were less harrowing and Tony found himself returning to the days Before-Afghanistan when sleep was a thing to be trusted, not feared.

In the great Three-Act Tragedy that was The Life of Tony Stark, however, such a thing as peace was ridiculously short and uproariously destroyed. Which was right about the time that New York happened, and Tony decided it would seem right to just throw himself - and a nuke - into the great, gaping maw of an otherworldly portal in an attempt to seem a hero. Even if he was, by his own self-definition, no such thing.

So he tried self-sacrifice.

And survived.

And for some reason this didn't seem at all right. Correct. Like a math formula with missing variables, and he didn't sleep at all those three days that SHIELD took to decided Loki's fate because there was something bugging him, a niggling feeling in the back of his head like they were just missing something.

In the end it hadn't mattered at all, because Thor and Loki were gone and now there was just himself, Pepper and his toys.

But of course it hadn't ended there.

And so, the nightmares returned in earnest.

 

Tony fell.

He'd stood on snow and ice in a world that was not his own. It seemed to him like a corpse picked clean by crows, a war-torn thing that was his and not his and these thoughts did not seem his own. They were someone else's, which seemed really out-of-place in dreams because thought was word and word was thought and there wasn't any way to actually tell the two apart.

He'd stood there, and let the cold wash over him, felt goose bumps prickle beneath his sleeves and all of a sudden the earth had cracked beneath him, and he had been all but shoved down, by something he couldn't - didn't - want to see.

So he just fell, and the wind had buffeted him, cradled him, and punched him all at once. This bipolar wind seemed all but natural, and Tony knew exactly what it was like to be harassed by natural winds, and his fall seemed to him unbearably short and unbearably and unbearably a lot of things that anyone else wouldn't have thought in the middle of a freefall.

In his ears there was the sing-song of something that was unnatural, and there was no armor, no anything, like he were naked. His skin burned, and the wind felt like hands in a way, all around. In a brief second - a second which felt like the moment before impact - he was yanked up, like a doll on strings, or a parasail, and the whiplash was enough to make him scream, though no sound left him.

It was at that exact moment that Tony woke up.

Tony always felt strange in the few minutes between a nightmare and the waking hour. Especially recently. Something always felt particularly wrong, perverted, like he hadn't quite escaped the nightmare regardless of whether he was awake or not - and yeah, that was something that really just scared Tony, straight to the bone.

He got up, listened to JARVIS' drone about weather and appointments and responsibilities and all sorts of words Tony couldn't be bothered about, and set about his morning routine.

He ended up in his workshop.

 

Reality wasn't like movies. You didn't save a world and ignore the repercussions from it. Because, yeah, maybe the Avengers did save the world from an army of raging pseudo-machines, and maybe they did stop the single greatest threat the world had ever seen.

But what was left was a broken down, battered, torn apart metropolis, the people that helped rebuild said metropolis, people that refused to take action and instead complained, and the government.

"The Avengers were the mistake that saved the world."

Yeah. Mistake.

When Tony Stark sets to finishing a personal project, he does it for two reasons. To think, or to distract himself. Sometimes the two correlated directly in a huge brain-hurricane that ended up with him becoming ultimately very frustrated. Most of the time, at least now, he thinks too much about the New York Incident.

He wondered what it was like, for normal people, to suddenly and violently realize you weren't alone.

It sounded terrible, but he wouldn't really know.

He'd seen a few news programs, on extra-terrestrials, he'd seen a few debates on Thor - which was alright, because of the six of them Thor's the one that they'll most likely never see again - on how he fits into all of this, on the dangers of what he represented and it was really a damn shame, because Thor was a good person, he really was, if a bit dumb.

And of course there's the nutballs that split off into religious factions to pay worship to the machine race. But Tony decided he'd rather not think about them.

In all honesty, he spent a little too much time thinking about Loki. And Asgardian justice, and deep down Tony hoped that he was getting everything he deserved, because there was just something about Loki that rubbed Tony the wrong way. He pitied Thor, because it was hard to believe in somebody and have them slap you back down every single time you turned their way - and sure, Tony gets that.

What bothers him isn't what comes next, it's what happened. Because even if it is all over it isn't.

They're missing something and Tony, frankly, just does not like that.

Life goes on, though.

Pepper arranges benefits for the arc reactor funding, Tony chips in every now and then to give a smile and a well, senator, we can cut the costs of fuel by a great deal with just a nudge in the right direction, which is half-truth and half-lie but it's working towards something better. Fury checks in on him every now and then in the presence of Natalie Rushman - AKA, Natasha Romanov, Black Widow, a thousand other aliases - and Bruce calls him up whenever there's an available phone.

And Tony has his nightmares, and his sleeping problems and eventually Pepper figures there's something wrong. Which, in turn, leads to a handful of other people worrying about absolutely nothing.

Or he thought it was absolutely nothing.

It all leads up to this: Loki Odinson falling through his ceiling.

 

It was the second nightmare of falling he'd had. A repeat of the last, with the snow and the chill and the cracking, the feeling of being roughly pulled up. It didn't seem at all like anything special, or different, or truly alarming - though repeat dreams were always atypical and always ugly.

It ended the same; a soundless scream and no air to go and Tony found himself awake at precisely 2:32 AM, or so the face of his LCD clock said.

"Would you like for me to put on the coffeemaker, sir?" JARVIS had said, in that polite and vaguely condescending way of his. Tony had ended up reprogramming him after a few snide, would you like me to call up Miss Potts, sir? Because he didn't - couldn't - worry Pepper any more.

Tony didn't answer, he sat up in his bed, half-tangled in his sheets, and just breathed. Like it were a blessing, some venerable thing that made him recognize that yes, he had survived the Battle of Manhatten. Yes, he was not a splat of blood and bone beneath the summit of Stark Tower. He was alive, he was living.

Distantly, the coffeemaker turned on its own, a low beeping that almost called Tony out of bed. He lingered in the insidious air of his nightmare for a while longer, let his eyes wander half-absently to the telescope he'd set up in his rooms.

"Yeah, but there's more out there than just you, isn't there?"

Tony was halfway to the coffeemaker before he even knew it.

It was when he was pouring himself a cup - all black, no sugar - that it happened.

It happened in the same way that an atomic bomb happens: suddenly, and without warning, and completely, utterly, startlingly loud.

Which it should've been, as it was the sound of a body crashing through a glass skylight, though Tony hadn't known it at the time. He'd heard it, though, and it was enough to send his mug to the ground with a loud crack, and JARVIS set off the alarms, a loud wailing that only added to the absolute chaos of it all.

Tony ran, snatching up one of the Mark VII bracelets on his way there. Just in case. It didn't hurt to be cautious, but Tony needed to find out what was what right now, before anything.

When he found himself in the living room, there was, amid the alarms and shattered glass and smears of blood a dark, tangled and decidedly broken figure in the middle of his home. Tony felt his pulse jump, his spine stiffen, and he watched as Loki Odinson attempted to pull himself up.

Loki turned his face to Tony, and all the world seemed to freeze.

There are very few things that Tony can say, without a doubt, have truly terrified him. Howard Stark was one of them. So was Afghanistan, and Stane, and falling, the idea of Pepper dying, the idea of himself being dead, the feeling he felt when Loki's hand was against his windpipe, closing in and the hiss of, "You will all fall before me."

He knew what is was like to be afraid, and he knew what it was like to look afraid.

And it was petrifying to him - though he'd never admit it - to see that fear reflected in Loki's eyes. To recognize it, though he could barely recognize Loki, in a person who Tony could never quite attribute the word afraid to.

Confident, monstrous, foolish, angry - not afraid. Never afraid.

There were other things Tony could not recognize about Loki, even in the dim darkness of his home. The alarms dimmed after he barked at JARVIS, and he'd cut the soles of his feet on shattered glass when he ran to Loki's side. Loki had shoved him away, at first, when he'd grabbed for his shoulder. Tony figured out why when blood stuck to it, red and dark.

"Shit." Tony said, and Loki looked away, turned away. His hair had been uncleanly cut, stuck out in odd angles, like it'd been sheared with a dull knife. "Shit."

Loki didn't say a single word, and when he finally faced Tony, as he was being hefted up, Tony saw why.

The stitches were just as unclean and sloppy as the haircut; a crooked whipstitch performed by a person with no real talent in sewing up lips.

"Shit, Reindeer Games." Tony breathed in the darkness, as Loki leaned against him. In a brief moment this seemed all surreal and all a part of his nightmares - though of course he was awake. "So this is Asgardian justice, huh?"

The pit of Tony's stomach felt sick, and Loki paused - which made Tony pause - and after a long, long while, Loki just shook his head. Loki reached over, weakly, and tapped the arc reactor in the middle of Tony's chest.

What that meant, Tony had no idea, and when Loki reached back there were two little bloody fingerprints left behind.

Tony wasn't sure what to do in this situation. What was the protocol for a Norse God falling through your skylight? Especially a Norse God that should, for all accounts and purposes, not be here?

Loki leaned heavy against him, weighty and with too many limbs, and Tony knew all at once that he needed to get him on a bed before he passed out on a bed of shattered glass.

Which was why, in but a few brief moments, that Loki ended up on Tony's bed.

He'd figure out the details later, he'd decided.


	2. Playing Nursemaid

There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part II: Playing Nursemaid

Where we would end a war  
another might take as a beginning,  
or as an echo of history, recited again.

Brian Turner's "A Soldier's Arabic"

 

Loki slipped into some uneasy unconsciousness - or perhaps he'd just closed his eyes and created some sort of personal disconnect between himself and the world - but when Tony had flicked on the lights to examine the damage...

He'd regretted it, because it made his breath catch in his throat, made his eyes burn and his spine straighten - harden so much it felt like it'd snap. He hadn't seen it, in the darkness, and with the light washing over Loki's features. He wasn't sure he had ever wanted to see anything like it ever again.

There were scars, wavy, red lines that stretched in intricate - crude - patterns along Loki's forehead, and around his eyes, disappearing deep beneath his color bone. There were places where the lines jutted off, like an accident, like Loki had struggled, and hard.

When Tony picked up Loki's pale wrist, he rubbed a thumb along the chafed skin, and Loki did not stir.

"Would you like me to alert SHIELD, sir?" Asked JARVIS.

"Better not." Tony replied, and he pulled at Loki's shirt. There had to be glass embedded in the skin, for there wasn't any way for anyone to fall through glass without getting at least a few shards in. Which Tony knew, of course, from previous experience.

"SHIELD protocol states that any sightings of Loki Odinson hence from the time he first arrived on Earth are to be reported. Need I remind you, sir."

"JARVIS, I'm not letting my own house nag me." Tony pulled the ragged shirt - which didn't really have a right to be called a shirt - over Loki's head.

The scars did travel further, all along Loki's body. Red and raised and cruel and painful, really, just to even look at. Tony let his eyes wander, instead, to the whipstitch on Loki's lips. Like that sight was any less disturbing.

"Very well."

And if that didn't sound at all judgmental, Tony didn't address it at all.

Loki had glass stuck all along his forearms - tiny cuts, which made him pretty lucky. Or, well, as lucky as a person who fell through a skylight could get.

Speaking of which, Tony really needed to put a tarp over that before the morning California rain rushed in. Which was beside the point, and really not a thought he should have been having but Tony was stuck in the great schism of what is going on, with several thoughts crowding about his head, flitting in and out and back and forth.

Loki's eyes fluttered open.

When he started to move, Tony protested, "Hey, no." And pushed him back down as gently as he could manage. Loki gripped his wrist like a vise, and there was a pause where he watched Tony through eyes that weren't as fearful as before, that didn't seem as caged or haunted or attacked at all.

"You've got glass in your skin, so uh... unless you want to get it out yourself..." The grip on his wrist tightened, pain shot straight up his arm like electricity, and Tony winced, because the warning that followed the wake of that pain was crystal-clear: I am warning you, do not touch me.

"Listen, Rudolph," Tony informed, in the same way you admonished a little kid for pissing in the sandbox, "You fell through my skylight. You really think you have any right to give me any lip - or well, grip? I guess you can't talk, huh?"

Loki's eyes narrowed, but the vise on Tony's wrist loosened up. And it was then, that Tony noticed just how cold the god was, like he'd been dunked in a vat of ice water.

"There you go. Now just lie back and think of England."

 

Loki's eyes were, in a way, the most unsettling things in the world. There were no eyes that were like his, Tony decided, and whenever he looked up to Loki's face as he picked glass out of that scarred, pale skin, those eyes were watching him. Never moving, always there, like he were vivisecting Tony's mind without him even noticing. Like he was trying to discern Tony's actions, or reasons.

At 4:00 AM, Tony picked out the last bits of his skylight from Loki's skin.

"So." Tony asked, as he flicked the last bits of glass in the trash beside him, "Here's a funny story. Maybe it'll make you laugh, but mostly it'll make you wonder. A Norse god, whose supposed to be wasting away in some prison up in Asgard, falls through a guy's window. Now, this same guy whose window he fell through, well, the Norse god thought he'd try and reenact the Defenestration of Prague with this guy. Big mistake, because this guy was one hell of a BAMF. Why would this god - who, yeah sure, isn't even a god - end up falling inside this guy's house?"

Loki's eyes searched Tony's face, and his scarred lips tightened. Tony grinned, but his dinner sloshed about his stomach.

"I'm not expecting the fastest answer, so take some time to think about it." He reached out, to touch the scars, just to see if there was anything-

Loki's eyes widened in their sockets, and he smacked away Tony's hand. His lips curled - or at least tried to curl - into a sneer, but those eyes, they were afraid, again.

Tony felt his throat close up, involuntarily, and his voice came out half-hollow, "What'd they do to you, Reindeer Games?"

Loki shook his head, eyes never leaving Tony's for a second.

"Not Asgard, then?"

Loki's eyes narrowed, infinitesimally, and Tony felt that feeling again - like a crucified frog about to be picked apart, like his skin was being pulled back. Tony hated the feeling almost as much as he hated the situation that was unraveling before him, like a great, tragic quilt built up of a numerous motley theories and decisions.

This time, Loki tilted his head, and his eyes flicked from Tony's face, to the arc reactor and away out the window. Tony watched all these movements with a particular macabre fascination.

After a few brief moments of silence, Tony protested, "Those scars look pretty nasty, never mind the stitching."

Loki's gaze slid over to him, and he started to sit upright.

"So, when is Thor going to bring down the house?" Asked Tony. "Pretty sure he's not going to be happy you're here. Or well, anyone."

Loki raised his eyebrows, and Tony knew what it meant without words: And you?

"Hell, I don't want you in my house." Tony wrinkled his nose. "I don't want you anywhere near me. But you know what, I'm trying to be a better person. It's all a part of this thing I've been trying out. Cosmic karma or whatever. Great big Buddha shit, y'know?"

Loki's stare was unsettling, at best. Alien.

"I mean, you threw me out a window, mind-controlled Barton, started a war and destroyed half the city. You've started a whole bunch of people down a path of mass hysteria and paranoia. Not to mention, you killed Coulson." Tony leaned forward, and could feel all his nerves screaming. "And you know what, maybe I could forgive those other things, but not Phil's death. No, not at all."

What Loki did then, was enough to set Tony completely on edge. He smirked, and it tore open some of those old wounds, and Tony could see the festering that had set in, which was enough to make him even sicker to his stomach.

To Tony's ears, his voice sounded dull, "But it'd be wrong to just cut you loose. Out in the real world, where if anyone spots you they'll gut you. Can't have it on my conscience. Plus, I don't feel like dealing with Thor's puppy dog eyes. Those are lethal."

Loki's grin fell, and blood dribbled from his chin. Loki reached to wipe it, but Tony stopped him.

"It'll get infected. Trust me, I know these things."

The glare he received in return was sharp, unyielding and Tony ignored it because that's just the kind of person he was. Loki was bleeding in other places too; his bare arms, his chest, and Tony scolded himself for not getting bandages in the first place.

Tony's feet were bleeding, too. He'd forgotten about himself as well, in the absolute chaos of this.

"Listen," Tony stated, and Loki's eyes were straight on him again. "I'm going to get bandages. You're going to stay put. If you move, I'll know. JARVIS?"

"Sir?"

If Loki were surprised by the talking voice in the wall, he didn't show it.

"Alert SHIELD only if Loki leaves this room, got it?"

"I will do that, sir."

 

Admittedly, Tony had half-expected to find the alarms in his house begin to wail again when he'd turned the corner out of his bedroom and into the medicine cabinet. He'd half-hoped that Loki would run anyway, actually, if to save himself from the thought of actually doing this - because whatever this was made nearly no sense to him, and he wasn't even sure what in the world he was actually doing.

Regardless, Loki hadn't moved at all when Tony came back. He'd shut his eyes - and opened them once more when Tony walked into the room - but had done little else. Like a statue, and Tony thought, immediately, as a snide joke to himself: don't blink.

Loki did nothing as Tony bandaged him up, but he did stiffen whenever Tony brushed his scars. Freeze up, really, and Tony knew that feeling, that motion.

"Sorry." He managed to carve out, the first time.

The fifth time he did it, he said instead, "I did that too, you know. When they put this in me." He tapped over the bloody fingerprints on his shirt, and could feel Loki's stare on the side of his neck like a brand. "Couldn't stand people touching it. Much less looking at it."

Briefly, he thought of Pepper, and when he'd had her put a whole new one in.

"You're all I've got."

A noise, like a growl, rattled about Loki's throat.

Tony snorted, "Don't worry, Reindeer Games. I'm not comparing myself to you."

Loki stifled the reactions the rest of the time, as if just to spite Tony, or to prove himself. Tony wasn't really sure which, and he almost wanted to know why.

"You don't have your magic anymore, do you?" Tony inquired, as he rolled a bandage over Loki's forearm. "You're exposed."

Loki's hands curled into fists, and green steam rose out from between his fingers. He watched Tony's face carefully.

Tony laughed, "I'm not impressed at all, Primadonna. They've sucked all the poison out of you, huh? Like a pet snake."

The noise reverberated in Loki's throat, again.

Tony paused, and he turned to look at those lips. At the crooked whipstitch.

"You fought back, though."

Tony thought about drowning, and the way his lungs had burned, and the bark of, "Jericho!" in his ears.

Loki's gaze was like a flame, and it made Tony's skin crawl insidiously. Goosebumps prickled up and down his arms.

"Guess they didn't get all the poison out of you, after all, huh?" Tony leveled himself, searched for a niche in reality to gouge himself into, as the whole of Afghanistan seemed to play out in his mind. Two years, and it stuck to him like a bur on wool. "But you're supposed to be the clever one, right? You couldn't just sit back and let them punish you?"

He thought of how collected Loki had been, that day, chained and muzzled. How arrogant he'd held himself, still, despite his defeat. The way he'd shoved himself away from Thor, away from them all, retreating into himself as though he hadn't lost a war at all.

"Nah, you're not like that." Tony scoffed. "You still think you're right. Doesn't matter if you kill a whole bunch of people, or one of my friends. Doesn't matter if you spread misery everywhere. You're right."

Tony grabbed a cloth and hydrogen peroxide and wet it. When he reached to dab Loki's bleeding lips, Loki dodged him, glaring.

"You wanna do this yourself?" Tony questioned, waving the cloth around.

There was a long, pregnant silence, and Loki settled. Tony reached forward, and dabbed away, feeling a burgeoning sense of impending doom all the while. Loki seemed to find the strange inability to stare this time, looking away again.

When Tony started talking again, he'd returned to looking, "You know, though, Reindeer Games. All the shit you've pulled down here... all you've done to Thor, everything you've done, you still don't even deserve this."

There was something utterly piercing about the god's eyes, then, that was enough to send chills down Tony's spine.

"I don't know who did this to you, if it wasn't Asgard - but we don't stand for this kind of bullshit on Earth."

Loki's brows pulled together, which wrinkled the great scars that marred his face, pulling them into tight, awkward positions that tugged at the patterns. Tony swallowed, though his mouth felt dry. Loki's lips curled beneath Tony's ablutions, and Tony wondered briefly, if it stung.

"Hell, I don't know where to put you." Tony wondered aloud. Loki blinked at him. "Can't kick you out."

Loki's eyes were owlish, wide, almost disbelieving.

"Thor'll come, eventually. Right?"

That made Loki shoot him a dark, mean-spirited glower that Tony didn't shrink beneath. Tony pulled back, crumpled the bloodied cloth up in his palm, and let out a long, tired sigh.

"You'll stay here, I guess. Until I figure something out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated.


	3. Foreigner

There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part III: Foreigner

Waking up is easy but you're breaking my whole thesis

Purity Ring - "Grandloves"

 

It is 6:00 AM and Tony Stark is brushing shards of glass into the dustpan while California rain patters against the blue tarp above him. The sound is a lot like fingers against a desk, a continuing leitmotif that was enough to make him want to crawl back into bed and into his nightmares once again.

Somehow, Tony decided that maybe going back to sleep with a genocidal Norse god in his home is perhaps not the best of ideas. Maybe it was just him.

Loki watched him, from the shadows, which was unnerving as it sounded. Tony tried his best to ignore him - and usually, when Tony tried his best at anything he could do it exceedingly well - but regardless, he could feel Loki's stare on the back of his head like a sticker stuck to the bottom of his foot.

Annoying, frustrating, and it was enough to make Tony start in again with, "You know, I'm actually pretty glad you can't talk." Which seemed petty in his mouth, and totally callous, but when has Tony Stark ever settled for something below callous? "Anything you had to say would only make me want to kick you out even more."

Tony had paused in his cleaning for a few minutes, had listened to the drone of the rain, and when he turned around Loki had slipped away. It was mildly creepy how he could do that, that thing with the feet and the noiselessness, and Tony tried not think about it as he shuffled glass into the trash.

"Sir, Loki Odinson has returned to your room."

"Perfect." Tony griped, and he makes a small note to himself to throw all those sheets and maybe the mattress too out the window once Thor picks him up. Which is, admittedly, juvenile in its own way, but Tony was never one for maturity. "Keep me posted, JARVIS."

JARVIS doesn't answer back, which makes Tony feel like the AI's being slightly judgmental; about either Loki staying here or not contacting SHIELD, Tony isn't entirely sure, but the air that's filled his house is all of a sudden stifling, and grievous, and Tony decided to pop open his wet bar and scrounge for something he hadn't drank yet.

 

Pepper tells him he's been living in the bottom of a bottle ever since New York. Tony isn't entirely sure it's true - Pepper's always had trouble with his drinking habits - but when he pulls out the last bottle of vodka from the back of the wet bar, it's a little more telling than he'd like.

The stuff is strong, and it stings all the way down his throat, and Tony curled out slovenly on one of his loveseats, and faced the nice California rain.

Pepper would be here in the morning, wouldn't she? And there'd have to be a nice explanation for why a Norse god was in his room when she got there. Tony doesn't think he'd be able to hide Loki, not from her, and especially because you can't hide something or someone as powerful and defiantly vicious as Loki from someone's sight. That's just not a thing that's done.

Loki joined him, in the darkness, and Tony didn't notice until he'd felt something in the air. Something which felt wrong, like a sharp, keen wind pressed against the nape of his neck, a cold chill that crawled up and down his spine.

"I still owe you that drink, don't I?" Tony asked, and he could almost feel Loki stiffen, like he hadn't expected to be noticed at all. "Guess you don't want it now, huh?"

Silence.

"What's wrong? Spindle got your tongue?" Tony laughed, despite himself. And soon enough, the seat beside him sank a little.

Loki stared at him. Tony felt it in the way you felt a spitball hitting the back of your head.

"Listen, princess - and yeah, I guess that's all you can do, right now but- hey!"

Loki reached over, and touched the arc reactor again. He was all but glaring at Tony now, and there was something precisely and terrifyingly angry in that stare, like they opened up into some screaming darkness that pulled at the edges of Tony's mind. Loki touched, but didn't move, which made Tony in turn afraid to move as well.

In the mild-mannered morning darkness, Loki's scars and eyes shone like they had lights of their own, insidiously, unnaturally.

Tony had an idea, that he wished had come to him sooner.

"You can write." He whispered, thinly.

Loki's stare turned from one eye, to the next. Tony felt a lot like a mouse caught in a cat's crosshair, or one of Hawkeye's targets.

"Listen," And he reached forward and tried, as gently as he could, to pull Loki's hand away. Which wasn't enough. "You write whatever the hell's happened down there - up there-, and maybe, just maybe, I can understand you. Because let's face it, this Helen Keller thing isn't getting us anywhere. Unless you're planning to talk with your hips. I could get behind that."

The withering look Loki had given him would've made anyone less brash than Tony Stark shrink.

Tony wrenched himself from Loki's grasp and gaze, and pulled himself up to look for paper. At least a pad, or something. This was amazingly - and irritatingly - hard, as Tony barely used paper in lieu of his own technology, and eventually he ended up settling for a pencil and the inside of Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, which was Pepper's but... not his problem.

Loki had stared at the cover of the novel for an interminable amount of time, before flipping it open to the cover. Loki adjusted to the pencil in his fingers, moved it in-between before settling for a strange, awkward grip that made Tony wonder if they had such a thing as pencils in Asgard.

Loki's writing was large, cut, and in a completely different language.

When Loki passed the book back to Tony, Tony had tutted and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Damn it." One word, and it had to be written in runes. "No, wait." And he rolled his eyes. "JARVIS, scan this, would you?"

There was a flicker of light, a grid that ran over the pages, and JARVIS said, "Scan of Nordic Runes complete, sir."

"Get it translated."

Loki's stare was still heavy on him, like a premonition. Tony avoided his gaze by instead staring at the stitches along his lips, seams that were crooked and pulled and deeply infected, and he wondered how Loki could stand it - not talking, if it was like having your own voice die in your throat.

"I'll make sure Thor gets those out." He said, though the truth behind it sputtered out like a candle. "I promise."

Loki didn't look like he trusted him at all and yeah, what reason would he have had to trust him? The last time they'd crossed paths, Loki had thrown him out of his own window, had tried to subjugate all the people around him, had killed Phil Coulson.

Something akin to hatred twisted in Tony's stomach, like snakes, but he tried to smother the feeling. Loki's body relaxed a bit, his shoulders melted a few degrees and it was only then that Tony had realized how tense Loki had been, like an animal backed into a corner.

Fleetingly, all the memories of Afghanistan opened up like a floodgate, and Tony swallowed, tried to keep his composure but it was too late; Loki had seen a weakness, a crack, and something dark and menacing flickered in his eyes.

"The translation of the Nordic runes is complete, sir."

Tony stood and stalked across the room, feeling Loki's gaze on his back the whole way there. Inside, Tony felt himself quake and crack, felt the way his nightmare-selves felt, but he choked down the feeling, packed all those traitor emotions away in his stomach until they were little more than a pile of hot coals in the pit of his stomach.

On one of JARVIS' LED screens, was a single, simple word.

"No."

 

"You don't want anyone's help."

Loki's eyes slid up to him, and the tenseness in his body returned. This time, Tony tried to see it all as a lie - a barrier set up to make him seem vulnerable. Tony had this strange feeling that the second he started feeling sorry for the ragged god beneath him would be the very moment that Loki won, and Tony would have a knife straight in the center of his brain stem.

Loki made no move to say yes or no. The clock chimed 7:00 AM. Tony Stark found himself engaged in a serious staring contest with a Norse god.

Tony dived in, closed in on Loki's space and attempted to drag him up by his bloodstained clothes. Before he could do that, Loki had shoved him away, and made a strange, choked sound out through his nose. Tony held on, however, and Loki seemed almost half-afraid of him, all wall-eyed and breathy.

But the in the next second between him holding onto Loki and Loki shoving him away, the god's face had flattened out, leaving something ferociously wrathful in its place.

Loki seemed to be waiting. For Tony to do something.

Tony lost all control of his thoughts, everything blanking out as though someone had just shut off his brain. His fingers felt sticky, and Loki's skin felt like ice through the fabric.

Without thinking, he just let go of Loki's clothes, and the god's eyes never left him. Something like a knot seemed to tie itself in Tony's throat, and he couldn't even think of a single thing to say.

"I..." Tony looked at his fingers. They were black with blood in the darkness. "Get out of this room, Reindeer Games."

Loki, in silence, complied with the request.

 

At 7:30, Pepper called to make sure he was still attending the benefit meeting.

"Oh, right. That. Wasn't that supposed to be on a Thursday?"

"Today is Thursday, Tony." Pepper had said, agitated voice tinny through the phone. "I promised them you'd be there."

Tony shrugged, and poured himself another glass of vodka, "Well, you can't always get what you want."

"No, you can't," Pepper's agitation only seemed to grow. "But as the rest of that phrase goes, if you try sometimes, you get what you need."

"You don't really need me there."

Pepper huffed, and it sounded like static through the phone, "Well, you wouldn't really know that, would you?"

Tony took a long drink, as if to steel himself for the incoming lecture, "Not my circus, not my monkeys."

There was another huff of irritation, or a long, resigned sigh - he couldn't really tell the difference anymore - and Pepper said, "You need to get back into the swing of things, Tony."

And that was a little close to the heart, a little dagger straight into the crux of everything and Tony retorted, his voice slightly sharp on all its edges, "Into the swing of what? I'm fine."

"You almost died."

"Almost being the key word there." His words felt stiff on the hilt of his tongue, so he drank more to lessen the feeling. "C'mon Pep. I'm okay. Dapper. Whatever you want to call it."

There was a hesitant pause, and then, "Whatever you say, Tony."

"Yeah." Tony licked his lips. "You can handle the benefit on your own, can't you? I've got... things."

"Things." Pepper sounded unconvinced.

Tony nodded to himself, "Things. It's really the most apt description of what I'm doing."

There was another long pause, and Pepper said, "Fine. But when you get done with your party," She stressed the word like a command. "Be sure to call me."

"Can do."

He wouldn't.

Pepper hung up, and Tony ended up staring half-blankly at his phone until the words, call from Pepper: ended, blurred into a great, lit smear.

Tony stood up, bottle in hand, and searched for Loki. He wasn't in Tony's room, which was strange, and he wasn't in either the party room or the living room and Tony began to panic slightly, in the way only he could panic, with as little hysteria as there was possible.

"JARVIS?" Tony asked.

There was no answer.

"JARVIS?" Tony tried again, and his feet picked up the pace, searching the rooms with a feverish madness.

No answer.

The only room Tony hadn't checked was the bathrooms. He found himself running, speeding away, thinking a thousand-and-one thoughts like: he ran off, the bastard, he's gone, he's going to do something, he was planning something and I just- and he slammed the door open with a bang.

Loki was in the bathroom, surprisingly.

He was ripping the throng out of his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated.


	4. The Window

There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part IV: The Window

Never regret thy fall  
O Icarus, of the fearless flight  
For the greatest tragedy of them all  
Is to never feel the burning light  
Oscar Wilde

 

There was so much blood.

It was everywhere. On the newly waxed floors, dribbling in slow drops from the torn holes in Loki's mouth, and all of it covered Loki's hands, like he'd dunk them into a vat of the stuff. Loki's eyes were wide as he ripped the whipstitch out with his hands, practically clawing it out.

"Shit." Tony choked out, and he ran to kneel beside Loki. "Shit. Shit. Shit!"

Loki shoved him away, glared at him, and it was enough to freeze Tony in place. The warning was evident, the edict within even more so: Do not interfere.

The string came out in a long, stiff motion that Tony could hardly watch. His throat seized, his windpipe folding in on itself like it were made of paper. But he watched it all, the whole thing, Loki ripping the threads out with long, bloodstained fingers. The contents of Tony's dinner churned uncomfortably in his stomach, the idea of retching became a blessing.

When the string fell to the ground, Loki hacked up his own blood all over Tony's floor. Tony reacted, then, his hands on Loki's back and shoulders, his fingers pulling back black strands of hair as Loki ruined his floor. Loki's pants were ragged, rough, like the voice attached to them hadn't been used in ages, or a millennia, and it took Tony a few seconds to realized the tightening grip on his knee, the fingers that dug deep into his pants.

Looking for purchase, or a niche, or maybe just to squeeze out Tony's kneecap - he wasn't sure.

"You done, Reindeer Games?" He asked, callously, with a hand on the back of Loki's neck.

In response, Loki spat out a glob of phlegm rather inelegantly, and his chest heaved with the strain of keeping himself upright and conscious.

"Hey," Tony decided that this was, in a way, one of the strangest situations he had ever gotten himself into. Though, admittedly, he hadn't gotten himself into it. "If you're going to start hacking up a lung and maybe a bit more, might I direct you to this wonderful thing over here - the toilet? It's a bit more, uh, suited to your purposes. Your Majesty."

"St...ark." Loki's voice sounded like water that had been thrown threw a fan. Or maybe shit. Tony wasn't picky about his metaphors or his idioms, so long as they got the point along. Maybe the better description would be to say that it was real live Hannibal Lecter shit, and Tony wasn't liking a single bit of it.

Loki started coughing again, and the gnawed, serrated fingernails of his hand dug deep into Tony's knee like a bear trap.

"Maybe you'd better shut up." Tony provided, helpfully. And then, softer, "Damn."

Loki pressed a hand against his throat, as if the very fact that he could speak was something physically painful, and said, "Wa...ter." He pressed on the rougher sound, and made a noise like a death rattle, shaky in his throat.

This vulnerability, however small, gave Tony pause.

"You are one needy intruder, you know that?" He said.

Loki's head turned slightly, and Tony felt he was trying to hide whatever weakness he could've seen from his face, but the glare there was something like a death knell, as clear and positively petrifying as one.

"I..." Loki started, and every word was sharp, like they had teeth or knives of their own. "Am a guest... in... your hall. To... deny me th... that which would... satisfy me... is... grievous!"

The end was half a yell, as though Loki had gotten irritated with the failings of his own body. Tony imagined he could almost see the walls around Loki, large ignominious things curled around him like cocoon, but Tony wasn't fooled, not at all.

"C'mon then," He groused, tugging at the loose shirt of Loki's. "I'm not leaving you alone anywhere, before you do something else to my house."

Loki hesitated, but complied with it, standing almost shakily on his feet. Tony was reminded of how much taller the god was than he, and shamefully planned out escape routes in his head, as though it would help him at all. Tony snatched up a towel - red, thankfully - and handed it to Loki.

The god stared at it, and then up at him, and Tony swallowed the bile in the back of his throat, "For your mouth. Looks a little nasty. You know, with the holes and the blood and the-"

Loki didn't thank him, just held the towel to his lips, and Tony felt his own throat cut him off. He could hear his heart thrumming in his ears.

"About that water..." Tony started again, though his voice trailed off, and fear seemed heavy on its hackles. Loki looked at him, in a way which made Tony feel as though his skin were being peeled off like an orange.

Tony turned, and couldn't hear Loki's footsteps as he followed him.

 

Tony had a feeling that Loki was one of those people that didn't enjoy being watched while they were eating. Tony was, as always, correct in this assumption. When he'd placed the glass of water in front of Loki, the god had stared at him until Tony had complacently turned away.

It was still raining, and Tony wondered if a storm would pick up. Tony enjoyed storms, though the warm, sub-tropical nature of Malibu was just as pleasant. But sometimes it was nice to have a change, and Tony didn't really enjoy leaving his house all that much recently as there were still a lot of people with a lot of questions and a lot more accusations.

Christ, he made heroism sound like the worst thing in the world. (and it was, really)

The crashing of a glass yanked Tony from these thoughts and back into the real world. It was enough to make him flinch, wildly, jump half out of his seat.

Loki's eyes were on him, and the remaining shards of his glass were on the ground.

"Bring me another." Loki rasped, though his voice sounded a great deal better than before.

Tony narrowed his eyes and looked from the shattered glass on the ground and back to Loki and said, angrily, "What the hell!"

"Bring me another glass, Stark."

Tony gestured towards the broken glass, "Why?"

"I grow impatient with this." Loki snarled, but he was searching Tony's face for something. Tony gave him a cross look that was stuck between anger, confusion and a general feeling of why would you do that?

"I don't know what they do up in the Magic Treehouse, but when people want something from others it usually comes with a please, or a thank you and none of..." He gestured again. "This!"

Loki's head curled in, and his eyes were as cold as the man they belonged to, "Midgard customs mean nothing to me."

For a second, Tony just glared at Loki, but then he smirked and said, "That didn't sound like a please, Scarface."

There was a long moment in which Loki simply watched Tony with eyes that seemed almost... empty. Devoid of something (a soul, perhaps) and Tony eventually bent down to pick up the shards of glass from the ground, which by now seemed as normal and occasional as going to the bathroom.

"It would please me," Loki said, finally, in a soft voice that barely hid a smirk, as Tony pulled up from the ground. "For you to fetch me a glass of water."

Tony tsked, "Wasn't the please I meant."

Loki's smirk was tight, taut, and seemed forced, "You didn't specify. Perhaps you should consider thinking before you speak."

Tony shrugged, "I'm a genius, but even I know that's impossible." His eyes raked Loki's features, over the scars and the forced haircut and the scabs which dotted the outline of Loki's lips. "There are some things I can't figure out, though. I can admit it."

There was a tightening in Tony's chest, and he watched the way Loki's mouth fell open, slightly, the way the god's eyes moved down and up and down again, a thinking pattern that Tony couldn't recognize.

"I am sure," There was a crack in Loki's voice again, like drywall being broken. "That there are many things beyond your cognizance."

Tony decided to just get to the point, grabbing Loki a glass of water as he spoke, "What'd you do to JARVIS?"

"I do not enjoy being watched."

The water being poured was the only sound for a few, pressing moments, "That wasn't an answer."

Loki laughed, deep and low, "A trickster does not reveal his tricks, Iron Man."

Tony sighed, eyebrows raised, and turned to place the new glass of water in front of Loki, "If you throw this on the ground, I'll beat you with a newspaper. Got it?"

The god's hand gripped the glass, and this time Loki allowed Tony to watch as he drank. He drank it all in one smooth gulp, ice and all, and Tony felt his chest tighten up even more, like he were all wrapped up in chains, pulling and pulling and pulling.

Loki's arm shook, slightly, when he put the glass down, and the god refused to acknowledge the shakiness of his traitorous body, though Tony had seen it all.

"So," Tony started, as smoothly as possible. "Whatever happened?"

This time, Loki's response was immediate, "Pose a different question." And his eyes were locked on Tony's, facing him straight on, and Tony had that feeling again.

"Well, that's not evasive." He responded.

Loki was quick, "Well, that is not persistently annoying."

Lips tightened, Tony felt himself mulling over the best way to snake answers out of Loki. It was a shame, he supposed, that Natasha weren't here. She was good at that sort of thing.

"Why me?" He posed, finally, leaning forward like he and Loki were going to share some great secret. He held in his breath like he were holding in smoke, and watched Loki almost as intensely as the other had him.

Loki's eyes flitted from Tony's, and down at the arc reactor, "It came to me, during the three days I spent in your director's cell, the reason why the scepter could not take hold of you like it had Barton. You," Another crack. "Hold technology similar to the Tesseract in your chest."

Tony felt his whole self tense up, like a cow getting ready for the slaughterhouse, and he growled, "You can't have it."

"You think you can stop me, Stark?"

"I did it once before." He shot back.

Loki's eyes narrowed, and a smirk pulled at the corners of those lips, "Yes. You did." But there was something in those words that seemed... off. Twisty, or windy, filled with the intricacies of something Tony didn't think he could really comprehend.

However, Loki continued, "But I have no need of it. For now..." There was a promise in there that Tony didn't want him to keep.

"Then why are you here," Tony asked. "Besides the possible vivisection, or genocide or whatever gets you going in the morning?"

And the answer he got back was positively poisonous, "I had no choice."

Loki's eyes widened then, and the fury in them was deep - but it was too late, for the vulnerability was already out there, in the open, for Tony to gorge himself upon.

"No choice, huh." Tony echoed. "It just happened."

The god's lips curled into a sneer, and his eyebrows wrinkled, which made the scars in turn crinkle and made Tony's stomach lurch once again, "I've no need for whatever pity you may feel."

Tony scoffed in disbelief, "Pity? For you? News flash, Diva, you tried to enslave the human race."

"Good." Loki said, and his face flattened out. "Perhaps you're not as dim-witted as I thought you."

"Yeah," Tony gave a little half-laugh. "That's what most people say after they've had me in a room for a few minutes. Along with, well, other things. Noises, mostly. Not... words."

Loki stared at him, apathetically, as though he hadn't caught on to Tony's insinuation, and seemed to search both of Tony's eyes.

"You want more water?"

Loki's response was short, cut, "No."

"How about food?" Tony slumped a little on the table, arms crossed on the edge. "You ever tried pizza?"

Loki looked away, and this time it was he who watched the rain. He didn't give Tony an answer.

"Well, I'll have some. Might as well eat before Pepper gets here. God only knows what she'll do when she does."

 

Most people didn't order pizza at nine in the morning.

Most people weren't Tony Stark.

He didn't leave Loki alone the whole time, had JARVIS - who had suffered some serious, but fixable and yet unknown malfunction - keep tabs on the god through the presence of the built in surveillance of Tony's home, and Tony marveled at how Loki seemed to check every inch of the place, like he were memorizing each and every molecule.

It was a lot like watching an animal in a zoo, he decided, as he gnawed on the cheese-filled crust of the local pizzeria, and even more like monitoring a very large, very luxurious correctional facility.

Tony wasn't sure why Loki hadn't made a run for it. Maybe he couldn't, maybe he was planning something else, entirely. Maybe it was both. Maybe it wasn't worth running when there was a one-hundred percent chance of Thor tracking him down.

Either way, Tony tried to not let the matter get under his skin and tried instead to get to work. Or, really, distract himself from the matters at hand. He preferred to call it work.

It didn't work.

With his goggles on and a circuit board ahead of him, Tony Stark found it very, very hard to concentrate on schematics, algorithms and the metal scattered all around him. He found it instead, very easy to think about the god upstairs, patrolling his home as though he owned it.

He tried to imagine what was going on in the wasp's nest of Loki's brain. Of what had happened to him. It was absolutely unsettling, the almost strange nonchalance the god had with what had occurred. In fact, if Tony hadn't seen anything on the outside he never would have presumed anything to be wrong with the god.

Tony wondered how he could do that, internalize all that pain without acting as though it hadn't changed him at all. And yet... it had, hadn't it? He thought through the events that had happened in the past six hours: the fall, the bandaging up, the writing, the way Tony's hands had felt balled up in Loki's shirt, the way the god had reacted to that.

Despite everything, Tony couldn't help but feel a little sorry for the poor bastard, and this thought made him indescribably angry.

Because, regardless of what Loki had been through, what still remained was the shattered metropolis on the other side of the country, and Phil's funeral, which none of them could have gone to because it was supposed to be a small affair, like Fury had thought that death hadn't mattered to any of them at all.

Tony shoved the circuit board to the ground, ripped out wires and stood in his workshop, in the great screams of "Snowblind" and felt for a moment like the angriest person on the planet.

 

At eleven, Tony waited rather impatiently for Pepper to show up. Loki was lurking in the shadows, somewhere, but he could barely be bother to go seek him out.

In the end, it hadn't mattered, because it wasn't Pepper who showed up.

It was Agent Romanov who did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated.


	5. Arc Angel

There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part V: Arc Angel

\--x--

_There is no reason for this, only  
a starved dog's logic about bones._

_\- Margaret Atwood's "More and More"_

\--x--

If it had been another time, Tony might've enjoyed the way the dress suit clung to Natasha Romanov. He might've liked the way she walked, with purpose, though every step he saw was half-false and half-true, as _the Black Widow_ had a way of swaying like she were a cat getting ready to pounce, or a spider skirting the edges of her home web.

Another time, maybe, but certainly not now.

"Mr. Stark," She greeted, coolly, as Natalie Rushman. "Ms. Potts sent me over with these." In her arms was a binder of papers, a _if you can't work at the benefits, you can work from home_ message straight from the desk of Virginia Pepper Potts and into his arms.

Tony's pulse was a percussion band set to Circus Gallop, "Ah," Every word was halting, like a thoroughbred pounding hooves before the gate. "Miss _Rushman,_ what a... pleasant surprise."

It was, of course, anything but.

Natasha's eyes had a certain... light to them, an impenetrability that rivaled Loki's, and Tony felt the need to iron out his emotions to be almost overbearing. He felt like any movement was a great neon sign that flashed, _"Oh, by the way, there's a Norse god chilling in my house. Thought you oughta know."_

The agent placed the binder on the table, treading uncomfortably close to the hall where Loki no doubt hid, and Tony's heart leapt straight into his throat. He felt much like a man gripping the edges of a cliff, watching the way his fingers slid, slowly and slower still.

From Natasha's pocket came a small, black flash drive, though she made no mention of it, and turned to Tony, away from the hall - which made Tony gave a collective inward sigh - and said, "Ms. Potts asked that these papers be signed before Friday evening, Mr. Stark."

"Sure." Tony replied, and his voice felt slightly thready with relief. "Whatever Pepper says."

Natasha's eyes narrowed, and Tony could feel the way that gaze honed in on him. Between her and Loki, Tony felt like he were some petri dish beneath the microscope, being peeled apart and analyzed, every reaction marked up on a whiteboard. The world's science fair experiment.

"Are you feeling alright, Stark?" Natasha asked, and _this time,_ Tony could see it, the SHIELD agent in her. Something sick and wild tied a knot in his throat.

He shrugged, "Hair of the dog."

Annoyance flashed across her face, "I see. I'll be leaving. Ms. Potts is expecting me elsewhere." And she'd walked straight past him, chin held high and shoulders tense (they were always tense, like she were always expecting a fight) and Tony half-let out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding in.

There was a sound from the hall, a slight crack, and Natasha had stopped in her tracks. Tony clenched his jaw.

"I'm turning that robot into scrap, I swear," Tony lied, smoothly. "Hope it hasn't broken something _actually useful."_

Natasha gave him a final glance, said her goodbyes and left the building.

In barely a second, Loki turned into the room, and Tony hissed, " _Nice._ It couldn't have killed you to be, y'know, _low-key_ for a while longer? I know you're attention starved, but _really--"_

Loki interrupted, in a voice that was disbelieving, "You lied for me."

Tony blinked, taken aback, and then rolled his eyes, "I just want to get on with my life without all of SHIELD breathing down my neck about the villain turned tortured soul in my house. Since, you know, we're supposed to report you on site. Ever since the thing with the subjugation, and the kneeling and the six-foot-long chasm in my office flooring."

There was a moment in which Loki's stance wavered, where his eyes flickered away from Tony's own, a small pause that made him look entirely like a different person altogether, "I assumed you had alerted your Director. It made little sense to me to hide further."

"What," Tony felt confused. "You _wanted_ me to rat you out?"

Loki shrunk a little, his shoulders melting a few degrees, and the sigh he let out was tired, resigned, an adult dealing with a child with far too many questions, "If I wanted that, then I would have succeeded, Stark."

Tony had the distinct feeling that he was lying. Which wasn't a surprise.

He scoffed, "That's one terrible lie. You're really starting to lose it."

A muscle in Loki's jaw jumped, a movement that wrinkled one of the scars that ran along his cheeks. The hair on the back of Tony's neck stood up, involuntarily, without warning. Loki gripped his wrist in front him, an action that Tony had never seen him do, in all the video that SHIELD had had of his time alone in his cell, video that Tony had, without real reason to, watched over and over and over until all of it were a mess in his brain.

Because he'd thought that if maybe he could catch Loki doing something, anything, it meant he could kill him. Because Phil was dead, so many people were dead, and Loki _still, despite it all,_ had someone arguing for him to Fury, because Thor could've left the god here, for them to deal with as they wanted to, and taken the Tesseract without a second thought about the not-brother that had denounced him at every opportunity.

Despite it all, though, Tony couldn't bring himself to harm Loki any further than he'd already been harmed. He couldn't put his finger on the feeling he felt while looking at the god, or treating his wounds, or telling him, in passing, just a little bit of what Tony had tasted in Afghanistan. Revealing that weakness, that pain, was a risk Tony wasn't sure he should have taken.

"I... " Loki licked his lips, over the scabs, an action which should've been painful. "I owe you a debt, Stark."

"I'll make the wild assumption that that's a bad thing."

Loki smiled, wryly, "That depends on you."

"You can take your debt and cram it up your ass." Tony replied. "I didn't do it for you."

\--x--

Tony had nearly forgotten about the black flash drive that Natasha had disposed of on the binder of papers, papers which he'd had no intention to look at or even sign. Which, yes, wasn't his fault.

With all the ideas, events and dialogue that'd swam wildly throughout his head it seemed perfectly reasonable to forget about a mound of paperwork that really had little to no bearing on his life or his ex-company. Not that Pepper would see it that way, but still.

He was reminded of it when he'd passed by Loki, and the binder, and had caught the flash drive with his eye. It sat there like an accusation.

When he'd plugged it in, broke the weak, world-class hacker level encryption on it (in case, Tony supposed, that anyone besides him had gotten their hands on it) the screen and information that greeted him felt also like an accusation, a great finger pointed directly at him.

 _Traces of the Tesseract,_ Tony half-read, _small amounts of gamma radiation across the country - possibly Thor and/or other Asgardians, be on alert, blah, blah, blah._

Tony's throat felt like he'd swallowed a nest full of cold moths. He had the strange feeling that that wasn't it, that there was more.

He'd made it three steps on the stairs before he buckled over and threw up. Tony wasn't a stranger to puking, or the nausea that came with the rest of his fucked up life, but he would have liked to make it to the porcelain throne. Or the sink, at least.

Tony's mind blanked out, and it took him a few seconds to realize there was a dark, scarred form kneeling beside him.

"Stark." Loki's voice was demanding to the ears. "You vomited."

"Did I? I hadn't noticed."

The hand on his shoulder tightened. Bitten cuticles dug into his neck.

Tony said, "You mind?"

And Loki replied, "Come."

Tony didn't protest. He just got up, shouldered past Loki - half bumping the god down the stairs in the process - and made it to the bathroom where he ended up throwing up again. Loki stood in the door frame like a ghost, or a specter, or maybe a nightmare from the past come to haunt him.

Wiping his face with a wet towel, Tony said, to no one in particular, "I got a report from SHIELD. Said you left traces of the Tesseract when you collapsed my skylight in."

Loki's eyes and stance were wary, like a wounded animal, "Yes."

Tony watched him in the mirror, this phantasmagoria that made no sense, and clicked his tongue, "The arc reactor."

Loki's head bowed, slightly, and he watched Tony with half-lidded eyes. No response.

Tony chuckled, "I'm right, aren't I? Actually, don't tell me. I _know_ I'm right. I'm always right."

"Perhaps you are, Stark. I speak hypothetically," Loki's voice was as soft as sin. "But if you are right, then what? What would you do with this realization?"

Tony Stark laughed, and turned away from the mirror to face Loki, "How could you use it? I mean, I've got the what's figured out. Not the why's."

Loki stared at him.

"Don't worry, Reindeer Games," Tony muttered, jokingly. "Anything you say or do can't be used against you."

"And I am to trust you?" Loki asked, angrily, scarred lips curled into a sneer. "You, who stopped me from the world, which is rightfully mine? _You--"_

"You trusted me before," Tony interrupted. "I mean, like you said, I could've handed you over to Agent Romanov on a silver platter. Washed my hands clean of you. My Pontius Pilate to your Jesus of Nazareth..." Tony stopped there, looked away thoughtfully. "Now _that's_ a terrible analogy. Almost sure that'd get me stoned in some cultures."

Loki bristled, actually _bristled,_ like a cat hunched for battle and _hissed,_ actually _hissed, too, "_ It is for _me_ to know alone!"

Tony, who felt like he'd been pushing Loki a bit too far, decided to push even more, "What, you afraid I'll tell Thor? Stop you from another escape from whatever justice--"

 _"Justice."_ Loki said, dripping with poison. "As if what has happened to me were _justice_ of any sort!" His eyes gleamed, sharp on every edge and Tony was reminded that there was nothing, nothing at all to stop Loki from killing him, here and now.

That was, to Tony, one of the most terrifying thoughts to have ever passed his mind.

"Maybe it's not, maybe it is, you sort of blurred the line." Tony wasn't thinking now, the words just came to him, like something out of his nightmares. "Maybe it doesn't matter, but what matters is the _why._ You want me to help you, fine. I'll help you, hell, I'll keep you out of Thor's reach. I will, if you'll just _tell me_ a few things."

Loki whispered, leaning forward slightly, still sneering, "And I am to take your word? A meaningless Midgardian's word for it?"

Tony shrugged, rolled his eyes, "I guess." He could feel his pulse in his ears, almost deafening.

"You cannot keep me from the Thunderer's grasp." Loki rasped, suddenly, and his voice seemed as dry as sandpaper. "No one can."

The god seemed desolate, like a toppled skyscraper, yanked down. Watching him be desolate made Tony's heart soar with glee, or plummet with something else he couldn't name. He supposed it didn't matter. Falling was just like flying, forget what anyone else said. The only difference was that one was an end and the other a beginning.

For a too-long second, the two of them stood there. Tony felt a little stab of pity in his heart. Outside, around, the sounds of a storm picked up, a great flood of rain that covered them all around.

"He is coming," Loki said, and it sounded more like a prisoner's statement before their execution. "He will take me, and your questions will go forever unanswered."

Tony Stark had nothing at all to say to that.

Which was alright, because in the next minute a God of Thunder arrived sopping wet on his doorstep.

\--x--

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is appreciated.


	6. The Storm God

_You're the colour,_  
you're the movement and the spin.  
Never  
Could it stay with me the whole day long  
Fail with consequence, lose with eloquence  
and smile.

_The Notwist - Consequence_

* * *

Tony Stark was not afraid of Thor. Not in the same way that he feared Loki, not in the sense that any moment he could be squashed beneath Thor's heel and there'd be absolutely nothing he could do about it. No, Tony wasn't afraid of Thor like that.

He was more afraid of Thor when it came to Loki than anything else. It was the steely fire Thor held in himself, the resolve that preceded events that the demigod had never spoken of, events that had culminated in the scarred mess that sat in his living room.

That steely fire, that resolve, was something to be feared.

* * *

It wasn't enough that Thor didn't knock, no, he had to _bring down the whole door,_ because gods, apparently, liked to make an entrance. Tony supposed, as halfway comment to himself in a moment of sheer panic, that it was good that he didn't come accompanied by half-naked Thor-themed dancers. Because while Thor had style, in the same way that Labradors had style, he didn't quite think it was _that_ sort of style.

All around him, the world seemed to crack, as thunder rolled over and across dark clouds. The effect, cinematic as it seemed, was enough to make Tony stop in his tracks.

Thor filled half his front door, from shoulder-to-shoulder, and looked ready to take on a whole regalia of old, ancient knights. Compared to Thor, Tony felt a lot like an ant.

And wasn't _that_ funny. Not Ha-Ha funny. _Irony_ funny.

He was babbling to himself.

Tony tried to eke out a greeting, a greeting which couldn't come out because his voice died in his own throat, curling into it like his tongue had turned black. This was odd for a person who usually had a harder time shutting up than he did speaking, and even odder for someone who liked to make constant complaints about the amount of property damage his home seemed to rack up over the years.

"Thor," He managed rather half-heartedly. "I've got a doorknob, you know."

"Anthony," There was something rail-straight in the way Thor said it, stiff and rough, slightly choked. "I did not think..." He halted. Tony wasn't sure he wanted to hear the rest of that sentence.

Thor, for all his supposed statements about having grown up alongside Loki, was not at all like the other god. Tony was thankful for this. It made him more personable. Open. A book with slow flipping pages, one by one.

From behind, Tony felt Loki. Thor's eyes snapped, and he strode forward, then stopped, suddenly, a choked, " _Loki."_

Tony wondered what _he_ saw. If he saw what Tony saw, the same scarred appearance of a person who seemed for all the world on the outside the same, powerful being. Or maybe not, or maybe another thing all together.

"Well," Tony said, instead, in a voice that was halfway asphyxiating him. "This is awkward."

Loki, who was far less personable and far more eloquent by nature instead hissed, "Did you expect less, Thor? From monsters?"

Thor's eyes traveled, over and around and up to Loki's eyes again. Tony could tell how hard it was for him to not spring forward, to see what Tony had seen, how the scars lined every part of Loki, thin and sparse, half-deep and crooked.

Tony felt Loki bristle beside him, beneath that gaze, and Tony couldn't help but feel a pang of hatred for the god who so callously threw away his family's love like it were garbage, so blind to what was in front of him, as stark and clear as the very scars that marred his skin.

He couldn't help but hate Loki for it, a dull pain that settled in the depths of his belly, or a ragged fingernail that picked at old, half-healed scabs. It wasn't a fallible hate.

Tony, without real meaning, he just did, said, "So, Point Break. Maybe we should _chat," Chat,_ came out awfully rough, and Tony realized how really angry he was. "You know, set some boundaries."

"Anthony," Thor said, lumbering. There was an actual _crack_ in the room, a volt which tickled the air. "This is not... you mustn't interfere in this, friend."

"I think I should, actually," Tony returned. He felt Loki's eyes on the back of his head like a weight. "Since it's _my_ house that's getting destroyed in the process."

Thor's eyes, wide as they were, kept flicking from Tony to Loki and back again. His whole body had a stiffness that Tony didn't think were possible, a ridged terseness around the edges that made him seem almost fuzzy.

"You've come to return me, yes?" Loki said, suddenly, though Tony had definitely not forgotten that he was there. "I've no doubt the wastes of Jötunheim will be even more welcoming a _second_ time."

Tony had never heard of anything called Jötunheim. There was a vague familiarity in the word, but it seemed something nightmarish and awful, and he knew it almost instinctively, a feeling that weirded him out beyond reason.

Thor took a half-step forward, "Brother, I didn't-"

The words the god got in return was jagged on every edge, awfully and horribly pointed, a thousand needles disguised in a few words, " _Know?_ Come now, Thor, do not lie to _me!"_

The last half of that was half-hiss, half-yell, and Tony heard it as clearly as a church bell in the shell of his ear.

Another half-step; Tony felt a burst of Loki's breath on the back of his neck, could feel - surprisingly, almost surprisingly - the terror in it.

_"Brother-"_

"Enough!" Loki snarled, and the word was obnoxiously loud in Tony's ears, nails on a chalkboard.

Seizing the opportunity present in Thor's halt, in the startled doe-eyed stare, Tony moved forward, a hand on an arm which seemed at the moment larger than his own head.

"Hey," Tony said, making an attempt - and it was an awful attempt indeed - to hold him there. "Don't-"

Of course, however, when Loki began to insult he didn't stop, "Look at me, _brother!"_ Thor avoided his gaze. "Look. At. _Me!"_

When Thor did look, and Tony watched the slow rise of his head and heard the slight hitch in his breath, there was a small, dark bit of laughter out of Loki, drawn out like a string.

"Am I not a sight?" Loki said, slow and steady and _venomous._ "Am I not a spectacle of Jötunheim's depravity, their _monstrosity?"_

Tony couldn't even look at Loki behind him, or Thor, could only hear the lull of Loki's dramatic, breathy tones, the way his voice shook, ever so slightly, almost unnoticeably, if you weren't listening for it. Something akin to a hairball rolled in Tony's stomach, a ball made of premonitions and instincts.

"Father... I had no part in this, Loki." Thor objected, and he tried to move past Tony. Tony, for his part, did his best to keep Thor there. "If I had _known-"_

 _"Your Father only ever does things for a reason."_ Loki mocked, though who he was mocking, Tony couldn't be sure. "Isn't that right, _Odinson?"_

Thor pushed past Tony so hard and so fast that the shorter man ended up slammed into his wall, stumbling, gripping the edge of a table for purchase. The scene split away but he recovered, only to see Thor with one hand on Loki's shoulders.

Loki's eyes were wide, his whole body as taut and ridged as a drawn bowstring. Tony, who had seen terror before, recognized fully the expression that crossed Loki's face. The rough, ragged noise Loki made was bruising to the ears, but Thor didn't seem to take heed of the way Loki looked, didn't seem to know what was there in that pinched face.

"I swear to you, Loki," Thor said, quickly and rushed, holding Loki tight. "If I had known I would have stopped him, I would _have, I-"_

Tony was drawn to the color that seeped first from beneath Loki's battered nails. It was blue, a deep blue, that seemed to spread like a disease. Thor tried to draw back, but Loki gripped his wrist, staring wide-eyed into the taller god's eyes.

It might have been the light, but even Loki's eyes seemed to change, a strange halfway between red and green. Tony felt swamped, stuck there, a statue.

Thor growled, and Tony was drawn to Thor's wrist then, and his eyes widened when he saw the black ring beneath Loki's ashen grip, and he thought, distantly, _"Frostbite."_

Loki let go, limply, his face as pallid and withdrawn as it could have gotten. In fact, he seemed a million miles away, fixing Thor with eyes which at the moment didn't seem as red as they had before.

Tony wasn't sure he'd seen someone look quite so... numb.

Thor's blackened wrist hung in the space between him and Loki, and in but a few moments Loki fled, away, into the rooms of Tony's house.

Thor tried to follow after him but Tony yelled, "Stop!"

Wildly, Thor looked back at Tony, who said, again, "Hold up, Lassie."

"No, you do not understand-"

Tony snapped, angrily, "Just shut up and leave him be, alright? He's not going anywhere."

Thor's face crumpled, actually crumpled, and Tony felt a small pang of sympathy for the guy, for the not-brother of a man more inclined to murder than he was to reciprocating the unwanted love that was dumped on him. This sympathy, little as it was, did not last all that long.

"JARVIS?" Tony said. "Tell Thor that you'll alert SHIELD if Loki even so much as steps foot outside this house."

_"Mr. Odinson, as Sir said, should Loki step outside this home, SHIELD will be alerted immediately. Though they should have been, before."_

"Not now, JARVIS."

Thor's eyes darkened, "You had not alerted your shieldbrothers of my brother's presence here?"

Tony's eyes flicked from Thor to the black ring around the taller man's wrist and avoided, "Better get that looked at."

Thor shrugged, "It is nothing. A scratch is all."

"Yeah." Tony's voice lifted in sarcasm. "Sure. Whatever you say. It wasn't a question, though." He pulled away from the wall, noticed then the wild rampage of his heart, the great tug at the center of his chest. "Maybe we can talk, y'know, leave the tortured god in my house _alone."_

"I did not mean..." Thor's face fell, and he looked positively crestfallen. "That is, I had not meant..."

"He doesn't like being touched." Tony felt very snippy. "Most people that go through... that don't."

Thor looked straight at him, then, a gaze that felt like it went through. A gaze like Loki's, just a little bit, yet not nearly as intrusive. Tony straightened himself up.

"C'mon," He brushed past Thor, not only just to escape those eyes but to find something warm for Thor to put his wrist under. "Let's get that fixed up."

* * *

"That thing with... the blue." Tony was wrapped gauze around Thor's thick wrist. "And this. What was it?"

Thor looked very uncomfortable, put-upon, like a third-grader in a spelling bee about to misspell the dreaded word of caterpillar. Tony made note of this, in the same way he made note of everything that made everyone even mildly distressed.

"It is..." Thor seemed to struggle a bit, for the words. Outside, the storm had softened a bit to a drizzle. "My brother is adopted."

"Yeah, I know."

"He is not Asgardian, Iron Man." Thor continued, rather quickly.

Tony thought, a bit. Loki sure looked like Thor, minus the coloring. Asgardians were humans, pretty much, with just a dash of the ethereal and a sprinkle of monstrous strength and steadfast violent tendencies. The "blue thing", as he had eloquently put it, had come out of nowhere, like a spell or a-

"He's got something on him, right?" Tony asked. "Like a spell. Real life Harry Potter shit. Like a... glamour, or potion."

Thor shook his head, "My Father did not tell me the true details of what he placed upon my brother, only that it hides his real appearance from sight unless..." Here, Thor looked rather thoughtful. "Unless he is touched by a member of his own race."

"And what is his race, exactly?" Tony questioned. "Blue Man Group? Na'vi?"

"Your ancestors called them Frost Giants. We call them the Jötun, of the realm Jötunheim - a world of darkness, of ice." Thor shifted in his seat across from Tony, uneasily. "The children of Asgard know them only as... monsters."

"Monsters." Tony felt something hollow in his throat.

Thor nodded, "Mothers tell their children tales of the Jötun, of how their women steal wicked children in the night, of the vicious blood sacrifices the warriors offer to Ymir, of the way they pillaged our lands during the war..."

"You tell kids this."

"We are all warriors, sisters and brothers in arms, and we do not coddle our children with the idea that the world is... as kind a place as it could be." Thor looked away, then. "War is in our blood, Anthony."

Tony said, "That's stupid." He realized he was clutching Thor's wrist too hard, and loosened up. "And what, you bullied Loki with this? Told him he was a monster to his _face-"_

"My brother knew not of his heritage until recently." Thor said, quickly. "You... understand not the situation that we've made for ourselves, my brother and I. You know nothing of... of what had happened, of what happens _now."_

Tony said, sternly, clipping up the gauze on Thor's wrists and then settling himself into the couch, "Maybe you should tell me."

"I... it is a family matter."

"Maybe I can help." Tony knew he really couldn't, knew it in the same way that he knew the sky was blue or that he was a genius. The lie felt tasteless on the hilt of his tongue.

Thor fell for the lie, let his shoulders fall a bit, lost the powerful stance that seemed to be all around him. For a moment, Tony saw how young he really could have been, how truly _naive_ he almost seemed, though he knew better than to really believe it.

So Thor began the story, starting slowly and haltingly until the words came to him, easily, as he got more comfortable.

The parallels were as frightening to Tony as they were upsetting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is much appreciated.


	7. Recourse

_I travel without direction_

_Since I have been everywhere_

_Each road, each decision_

_Carol Feiser Laque's "Journey: All Roads Are Taken."_

* * *

Tony sat through all of Thor's story in total, deafening silence. The minutes and seconds didn't seem to exist at all, actually, the idea of time was as superfluous and ridiculous as Norse gods that fell through skylights, as awfully unrealistic as space wars that he'd never even heard of.

Thor shot off a lot of unfamiliar names: Sif, Fandral, Vanaheim, Norns and Frigga and Laufey. Every now and then he'd backtrack and say something like, "Fandral is a friend of mine from childhood, a true, valiant warrior, though his weakness has always been the charms of wenches." which didn't make them seem any realer to Tony, didn't make them come off as having any sort of existence at all.

A sort of numbness spread all throughout Tony as the story dragged on, an old, awful feeling that Tony associated with the time Stane had pulled the Arc Reactor from his chest, the way the oncoming cardiac arrest had felt as he crawled his way into the workshop.

He took note of the parallels between Loki and him the whole time, a mental checklist that made him sicker and number the longer it went on.

Thor had finished off, half-choked on his own words, with a deadening halt in each sentence, with Loki's literal fall from grace.

 _"A Lucifer,"_ Tony thought, almost snidely.  _"In his own right."_ A snide comment which hadn't actually been all that snide at all, an attempt to dissuade the situation with hollowed humor.

Tony looked straight at Thor, and wondered if he had looked that colorless before. He looked as wan as possible, moonfaced almost, like a child lost in a forest.

"I..." Tony's mouth felt very dry. He licked his lips. "He let go." Which was just  _such_ an eloquent thing to say, really. Tony's powers of the oratory were of the awesome variety. "You let him..."

"No!" Thor said, eyes wide and Tony had hit a nerve, he really had. "I... Stark, I did not let my brother fall, I did not." And Thor sounded more like he's trying to convince himself more than Tony, and there's a certain sadness in that that is utterly and completely foreign to him. Alien.

Tony rubbed his eyes, and the nausea in the pit of his stomach just wouldn't go away. He wanted to vomit, again, or crawl into his bed and forget that this had happened at all.

"So, what, he disappeared? For a year?" Tony asked, and the constriction in his chest just wouldn't go away, a violating feeling that pushed and pulled. "And none of you knew where he was?"

"We assumed him dead." Thor replied, dryly. "We laid his memory to rest in a dirge, set fire to the longship, though his body had been..." Tony smelled ozone, felt that cackle in the air again. "Lost to us, to the Void. To Asgard, to me, my Father... my brother was gone, forever."

Tony squinted, watched the way Thor drew in on himself then, closing up like an oyster.

And then he said, "And we all know what came next, I guess. Loki came, with his army. We defeated him, with our Hulk. You took him to Asgard."

Thor nodded, and said, "My brother was placed in our prisons for a fortnight, until my Father decided what would befit the crime..." Thor paused. " _Crimes,_ that he had inflicted upon the Realms."

"So you took him to... what was it again?" Tony remembered of course, but still. He had a reputation of ignorance and selfishness to keep up. "Yaw-tin-hi-em?"

"Jötunheim." Thor corrected, and continued, "My brother's... birthright." And he looked _very, very_ uncomfortable with that, which  _pissed_ Tony off, because it was easy to see _why_ Loki went off like he did, and he didn't get why they couldn't  _see it._ Why they didn't see what he saw so clearly, like crystal.

Beings that were supposedly so much more  _advanced_ than them, and  _this_ is what had happened.

"Why did Odin take Loki?" Tony asked, because the question burned in him, like spitfire.

Thor blinked at him, taken aback, and said very softly, "The Jötnar are near primitive, Stark, they had abandoned my brother before he was even a day old. Odin took pity, on a child so abandoned by-"

Tony shook his head, gave Thor a look like he were embarrassed  _for_ Thor, "Yeah, because all these attitudes about the Jötnar inside of Asgard... of  _course_ Odin would take pity on a _monster._ Get real, Point Break. He took him for a  _purpose."_

The air jolted again; "Do not speak of my Father in such a way, Iron Man."

Tony's face darkened, and he ground out through finely clenched teeth, "Your dad's a _fucking asshole."_

The air spun and twisted, wound around Tony like a mini hurricane. Thor was dead silent, his face impassive and stony, his lips unmoving. Tony wondered if he'd struck upon a particular nerve, pinched a weak spot of Thor's. He then decided he didn't particularly care - Thor  _deserved_ that slight. He hadn't seen what Tony had seen, hadn't had to clean up the mess the Jötnar left in their wake.

"Do not presume to know my Father's intentions,  _Metal Man,"_ Thor insulted. "I have no doubt that what he had intended was to curry peace between our people."

"By handing them, what? A sacrifice?" Tony asked. "A plaything? Did you  _see_ what they did to him?"

"My Father told the Jötnar king, the  _rightful_ king, that my brother would be given to him for an extended time, to repent for what he had done to his own race. Father made them swear, on their honor, that they would not harm Loki."

Thor looked up, searched Tony's face for something - acceptance, maybe, understanding even - but no, there was nothing like that in his face. Tony's teeth ground together, he thought of Stane, thought of drowning and  _"Jericho!"_ and the hum of an arc reactor and palladium poisoning.

"People  _lie,"_ Tony hissed out, insurmountably angry and forcing himself up from the adjacent seat. "For fuck's sake, it's all we ever really  _do_ anymore." He stood over Thor, hands balled up at his sides. "And what, was all this supposed to be  _justice,_ or something? Torture isn't  _justice,_ it's  _torture."_

"Anthony-"

Tony shook his head, lips curled, "Don't even deny it. You  _saw!"_ And he can't even figure out anymore why he is so angry, where are all this hostility is actually coming from, like a virus buried deep down in him just waiting for its chance to strike.

And Tony turned away, and he left Thor to sit there with that statement, that accusation curling around in the air like a whip.

* * *

"JARVIS, where's Loki?" Tony asked aloud, away from Thor.

_"Loki Odinson has taken refuge in your bedroom, sir."_

Tony found himself in his bedroom, paused in the doorframe. Loki stood there, like a nightmare, staring out of the window and at the ocean ahead of him, watched the roiling and vicious tides as they collapsed against the rocks. Over and over and over again.

It was eerie to look at. Tony wondered to himself what exactly was going on in that wasp's nest of a head, what kind of thoughts plagued the stark black figure that lined his window.

Tony took one step and got, scathingly, "Come no closer."

"Thor isn't taking you back to Asgard." Tony said. "Just a heads-up."

Loki didn't turn to face him, but bowed his head the smallest bit. His hands twitched, a motion that drew Tony's eyes to them, which Tony regretted.

" _Shit,_ what did you  _do?"_ Tony queried, because the God of Mischief was bleeding all over his floors again. He ignored Loki's past warning, jumped ahead to approach him-

"Do  _not touch me!"_ Loki hissed, yanking his bleeding hand away from Tony, facing him now. His eyes flashed, his whole body seemed to tighten up, like a bowstring. Tony tried not to look at the fingertips of Loki's hand, the ragged, bleeding cuticles. Instead he focused on those eyes.

There was fear, again, and hatred. So much hatred it almost poured out of him, so much hatred it seemed to swallow everything, all of it, like a maelstrom.

"I'm not going to touch you." Tony said, and it seemed too soft-hearted and touchy-feely so he tempered it with, "Not unless you want me to."

Loki peered into his face, did the same creepy thing he always seemed to do, where he peeled back Tony's layers like an onion, "Keep your distance, Stark."

A pause - there seemed to be an awful lot of those, recently - and Tony said, stepping forward, "You're going to have to be a bit more specific about what  _type_ of distance, Scarface."

When Tony reached out to touch that bleeding hand, Loki's fingers curled around his wrist like a vice, "Do not play games with me." He said, insidiously, and Tony smiled.

"What games?"

Loki glared at him, and the feeling of intimidation crawled across Tony's skin like a layer of worms. He suppressed it, gave his best smarmy smirk, and then said, "Listen, Thor's not taking you back."

"Say you." Loki whispered, and his grip tightened. A muscle jumped up Tony's arm. "What reason do you have to keep me here, Stark? Am I to be a trophy? A semblance of the enemy you took so great a pleasure in conquering?"

Tony replied, feeling as reckless and daring and positively  _stupid_ as he could have gotten, "Actually, it's more a personal creed. A  _'do unto others what you would have done to yourself'_ kind of deal. Hopefully it'll get me somewhere."

Loki hesitated, shockingly enough, and the grip on Tony's wrist was released. Tony was thankful he'd gotten off without a spot of frostbite. The hand was outstretched towards him, an offering, and Tony took it.

The skin just above the cuticles was a ragged, awful mess, and the reason behind this newest wound became as clear to Tony as daylight.

"So is this self-hatred an old thing?" Tony asked, aloud, fearlessly. "Or is this something you picked up after that stint with the Jötnar?"

Loki's head jerked up, his eyes narrowed, those eyes tapering to a point.

"Oh, Thor told me everything." Tony explained, and he felt bolder with each and every word.

"But of course." Sneered Loki, though his prior confidence and menace seemed to leave him for a second. "Dear Thor has such a hard time keeping to himself that which he should. It's one of his  _many_ faults."

Tony surveyed the hand and said, aloud, ignoring the comment about Thor, "You escaped, right? Didn't plan on ending up here. Didn't  _want_ to."

Loki's hand twitched in his, "Whatever gives you that idea, Stark?"

"I'm not your biggest fan." Said Tony. "Hell, I don't even really  _like_ you, and you know that. You could've gone anywhere, could've headed up to Norway and barricaded yourself in some cave."

"Where you, your Avengers and Thor would no doubt have found me." Loki hissed. "And you forget, I had need of your Arc Reactor."

"So that's it, huh?" Tony said, dropping Loki's hand. The god seemed grateful for that. "I'm just useful."

Loki looked uncomfortable, and reached out to hold his own bloody hand.

He retorted, "Be glad, Stark, that you haven't outlived your usefulness." And Tony had the distinct feeling that that sentence meant something else entirely, like an entendre.

"What can I say?" Tony replied, sarcasm drenched in each syllable. "I live to serve."

Loki looked Tony up and down and up again. He felt distinctly like he'd been x-rayed, like Loki was going to espouse all the things that were broken in him, from top to bottom, a laundry list of reflected fucked up things.

"Tell me, Stark," Loki asked, staring down at his hand. "Why do you keep Thor from returning me to Asgard? What changed your mind so?"

Tony felt sick again, and licked his lips, "Because it's not right, what they did to you. And yeah, maybe you  _do_ deserve it, just a little bit, but hey," Tony shrugged. "Doesn't change the fact that, down here at least, we've got  _rules_ about this kind of stuff."

"Your Realm's rules have made you all weak, reckless creatures!" Loki groused, and the glower he gave Tony was intense indeed. "You fear no retribution because there  _is no retribution!"_

"I'm not complaining." Tony retorted. "You shouldn't either, by the way."

Those sharp eyes fixed him with a penetrating stare, and Tony only smiled, all teeth and all defiance.

"You provoke me." Loki said.

"Not on purpose." Tony replied, laughingly. "It's just the way I am."

Loki looked at him then, suspicion etched on his face as clearly and plainly as the scars that marred him. Tony tried to piece together what he'd heard about the Jötnar from Thor, tried to imagine that face colored in blues and reds, and found that he couldn't quite conjure up the image at all. It didn't fit, really, on Loki, no matter which way you sliced it.

"How long do you plan on keeping me here, Stark?" Loki questioned, and his face was steely once again. "You cannot trap me here forever."

Eyebrows raised, Tony clucked his tongue and said, "Hadn't thought that one through yet. As long as it takes? Until... who knows. I'm not handing you over to your jackass of a dad, anyway."

"Odin is not my father." Loki murmured, lowly. "Surely Thor told you that much?"

Tony nodded, moved to stand in front of the window that Loki had stood in front of and said, with a small constriction in the center of his chest, "Yeah. But he took you, right? You'd be dead if he hadn't."

There was a small stretch of silence, and then, "Some would say I would have been better off."

 _"Especially,"_ Tony thought to himself.  _"If some were Clint Barton."_

Which wasn't Clint's fault. It wasn't anyone's fault, really.

"Maybe," Tony said, and then he echoed, "Who knows? Maybe you're alive for a reason."

Loki laughed, dry and hoarse and  _cracked,_ "Do not force your sentiments upon me, Stark."

All Tony had in response to that was a low, lost chuckle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews are appreciated!


	8. Solidarity Momentum

There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part VIII: Solidarity Momentum

* * *

_We go blind when we've needed to see_

_And it leans on me like a rootless tree._

_Damien Rice - Rootless Tree_

* * *

Tony made it very clear to Thor that there was no way he'd be taking Loki back to Asgard. Loki had stood behind him, silent as a shadow the entire time, during the whole nearly one-sided argument that consisted of Loki's fate. Thor hadn't even looked at Tony once the entire time, fully captivated by the not-brother that stood behind him.

It was really miserable, just the way Thor looked at Loki. Tony couldn't imagine the kind of reproachful gaze that Thor was getting back in return, but he could almost  _feel_ Loki's tightness behind him, could nearly hear it like a whole running script of:  _you will not touch me, you will not touch me, you will not touch me._

But when everything was done and said - on Tony's part, anyway - Thor had finally broken eye contact long enough to announce, "I would not return to Asgard, then, if my brother cannot come home with me."

Tony, for all his genius, hadn't expected that, "What?"

"No." Loki said, and his voice held equal measures of anger and anxiety. "Return to Asgard, Thor. Tell the All-Father what you've seen. Make it clear to him that if he so wishes my return, then he will come for me  _himself_ so that I may ask him-"

"Brother," Thor's face fell, his lips tightened. "Do not ask that of me."

"So that I may ask him what  _glory_ there is in throwing me to  _monsters._ What  _peace_ that may have brought." Loki finished, ignoring Thor.

Tony turned to face Loki, and was not surprised to see how steely that face looked, how rigid he seemed.

"Hey, what you want to do is all up to you, I know." Tony started out. "But I don't think bringing Darth Vader and the rest of the Death Star down upon our heads is exactly the brightest idea. Just saying." He finished this spiel with a shrug.

Sparing not even a glance at him, eyes fully trained on Thor, Loki said, "As you said, Stark, the choice is mine and mine alone. This is what I would like. To show Odin what he has _brought,_ what  _decision_ he has made."

"I cannot, Loki." Thor crossed his arms over his chest, did that  _thing_ where he frowned with his whole face.

"Cannot,  _brother,"_ Spit Loki, venomously. "Or  _will not?"_

"Can it not be both?" Retorted Thor, crestfallen. "I would not set forth in Asgard, not without you by my side."

Loki's whole stance changed then, like smoke curling in on itself, "I would throw myself from the Bifrost a thousand and one times again before I would even  _look_ at Asgard, much less walk on its gilded streets."

Tony interjected, then, clapping his hands, "Well! Looks like the three of us have reached an impasse. Two gods for the price of one, Bob Barker deals and all!"

"I do not wish to impose, friend." Thor said.

"You already did that by flooding my hallway and knocking down my front door. Thanks for that, by the way. Very impressive, very  _a la Spartacus."_ Tony felt Loki's gaze trailing a fiery streak down each notch of his spine. "But Thor, buddy, amigo,  _ami,_ the last thing you'd be doing is impose by taking up space in good old  _Stark Manor!"_

Loki hissed, impossibly close, "I would not have him stay, Stark." And then, threatening, "I will flee, and you will not find me ever again."

"But then SHIELD would hunt you down." Tony returned. "And believe me, they're not as hospitable as me. Far from it, in fact. You think you're hurt now?"

Loki's gaze was sharp as an athame as Tony continued, "What the Jötnar did to you, SHIELD would do a hundredfold. No, a  _thousandfold."_

Tony didn't know if this was truth or lie. Half-truth, maybe, which made the best lies. He hoped instead that Loki would fall for it, that he wouldn't hear the racing heart in the center of Tony's chest, that he wouldn't notice the suspicious pointed stare he shared with Loki.

It was Thor, surprisingly, that saved him, "I would stay, then, if it's not too much trouble."

Behind him, Loki seethed, and Tony replied, "We're going to have to relocate then. To Stark Tower." He shot Loki a glance over his shoulder. "Just like old times. Right, Reindeer Games?"

Loki did not dignify that with a response.

* * *

That night, Tony Stark slept in snatches.

His nightmares came to him in wild, hysterical episodes, like a freak windstorm or a near-death experience. Everything about his life, from beginning to end, flipped from behind his eyelids and into a sped up VCR tape, and he felt almost everything he'd ever felt in the span of a single heartbeat.

When he'd shot awake, it was exactly  _4:00 AM,_ and his whole chest felt like it were going to burst.

It took him a brief moment to recognize the weight on the edge of his bed and when he did, the weight  _spoke,_ "You have night terrors."

"Is that what they are?" Tony responded to Loki, groggily. "Felt more like a wet dream than anything else. Very pleasurable. I didn't know a gymnast could be  _that bend-"_

"You are crass beyond measure." Loki said, and Tony realized he was staring out the window of Tony's bedroom again. A specter of black against pre-morning. "Is it how you deal with the events of your life?"

"Not sure there's many events in the life of Tony Stark, asshole extraordinaire." Tony shuffled the pillow over his head, searched for small dregs of a nice sleep. "Besides booze, babes and... something else applicable that starts with a B."

"Beatitudes?" Loki finished for him. "You do not fool me, Stark. I know all that SHIELD had on you."

Tony's heart clenched, "Oh. Right. Barton told you  _everything."_

Loki paused for a second, "Yes."

"One thing he didn't tell you?" Tony said, muffled beneath a pillow. "Contrary to popular opinion, I don't like it when random people show up in my bedroom."

"Like you, I cannot sleep." Loki offered. "Whether that's a comment on the comfort of your guest quarters or myself remains for me to know."

"Ouch."

Loki inclined his head to the side, and Tony could see half-beneath his pillow the outline of Loki's head, the flicker of his eyes.

"What happened to you?" Loki asked, quietly. "Tell me."

Tony pulled himself up, out of bed, and half-faced Loki only to ask, "What happened to _you?_ That's a little more important, don't you think?"

"No." Loki croaked, his voice snapping halfway. "There is nothing important about it at all."

"You really think that?" Tony felt like he were treading on thin ice, like his wintry nightmares. "I thought  _everything_ about you was important. Came with the diva attitude, pure Primadonna."

Loki's laugh was dry, "You delude yourself in thinking I am like you. I'm  _not."_

"Believe me, daddy's boy," Tony replied sharply. "I didn't think that at all."

In the shadows, Tony could see the small twist of Loki's lips though he couldn't discern whether it was a smile or a frown.

"I have never been important." Said Loki. "I have only ever been a bargaining tool. Auxiliary. A  _spare."_

Tony paused, unsure how to continue, and said, "You seem pretty important to Thor."

Loki's shoulders tightened up, his posture slackened, "Thor wants a lie returned to him. He doesn't want  _me."_

"Maybe," And wow, is he really up at four in the morning discussing  _feelings_ with the same man that tried to throw him out his own window? "But would he really call you brother and fight for you every step of the way, unless he wanted just  _you?"_

Silence.

And then, "I know what I am, Stark, and I know that no one wants me. But it matters little. _I_ have  _me."_

Tony had absolutely nothing to say to that. But he felt a certain solidarity with the sentence, felt it in the center of his chest almost as surely as he felt the arc reactor, and there was no way that he couldn't not pity Loki. He couldn't really. For the first time, he saw  _something_ there, beyond the megalomania. Something beyond the hatred and the genocide.

_"They're calling you the Merchant of Death."_

* * *

The plane ride was... awkward, to say the least.

Loki spent the majority of it staring out the window, watching clouds pass as Thor made stilted and awful attempts at conversation.

Tony, as was his fashion, ordered a straight bottle of bourbon and tried his hardest to ignore both of them. It had been exceptionally difficult to hide both Loki and Thor in one of his more... subtle rides, or the only car even remotely close to subtle, but somehow they managed to make it to the airport without much fuss.

And now they were flying, with a notoriously odd amount of lack-of-fuss.

"This form of transportation is lumbering, at best." Was the only sentence that Thor ever directed to Tony which was better, he supposed, than trying to get him involved in whatever one-sided conversation he and Loki were having.

"My planet, my rules." Tony retorted, and he drank.

It was the middle of the afternoon when they touched down in the middle of New York City, and headed to Stark Tower in the guise of a heavily tinted car.

"The city has recovered well." Thor remarked.

Loki, as usual, was silent.

"We're nothing if not adaptable."

* * *

Stark Tower was dead.

Which was alright, it was pretty unused, especially in the wake of the reconstruction that was nearly halfway done. The  _personal project_ that Tony had tried throwing himself into after all the world tried to fall down around him.

Still, the lack of people within was deadening.

Loki spoke up for the first time in hours, "Your tower is impressive."

"I know you think so."

Thor said, "There is no one here?"

"Manhatten's still pulling itself back together." Tony replied, smoothly, though he watched Loki's reaction. "Baby steps. Plus, the Tower's got a little construction left of its own."

They took the elevator up to the penthouse, and JARVIS welcomed them with,  _"Extra security measures have been taken to prevent the sightings of both Mr. Odinson's-"_

"Loki, voice." Loki commanded, and Thor shot him a hurt look. "My name is Loki."

_"My apologies, Loki. SHIELD's surveillances over Stark Tower and your other properties have been jammed, as per your request."_

"Thanks, JARVIS."

The floors ticked by, until the doors opened up to the penthouse. Tony shot a look over his shoulder at Loki, to see if the god remembered this place, if anything about it became familiar to him.

Apparently it did, for he smiled the slightest bit, "I see you've filled the gap I left behind, Stark."

Tony pouted, "Oh, any gap you leave behind I could  _never_ fill." And realized only then how unintentionally  _racy_ that line had seemed, though he didn't care a whit.

The two gods seemed to survey the rooms for a bit while Tony set up the monitor, pulling up and bringing a 3D diagram to his hip. Loki and Thor flanked him at the shoulders.

"Here's Stark Tower," He said, looking at with all the faux love he could muster. "Right now, we're on the top level. The penthouse. This is  _my_ space."

The top level was highlighted, and Tony spun it around a bit.

"It's excessive," Said Loki, quietly. "Not befitting of a mortal."

"I'm pretty godly," Was Tony's retort. "I think I'll manage."

Loki's glare was poisonous, and his shoulders bristled, but it made Tony smirk to see that he could rile Loki up regardless.

"Where will our quarters be, Anthony?" Thor asked.

" _Separate_ quarters, of course." Loki added, and Thor shot him yet another harmed aside.

Tony chuckled and said, "Well, you're underneath me." Which was entirely meant to be a jab, and Loki knew it. But Tony continued, "And Thor's under you. You each get your own floor. Try not to start a catfight? I don't want to break you girls up if all this goes south."

"And we are to stay until..." Thor started, but then he trailed off.

Tony finished for him, "Until we figure something else out, yeah." Though he felt Loki's eyes on the back of his head again and the unspoken,  _"Until Loki figures out what he wants to do."_

* * *

Everything went smoothly until about  _1:30 PM._

 _"Sir?"_ JARVIS had started.  _"Director Fury is attempting to contact you."_

"Let it go to voicemail, JARVIS." Tony had replied, ripping out wires from the center of the Mark II. "I'm working."

_"He says it is urgent. He says, quite cleanly, 'Stark pick up this motherfucking phone right now.'."_

Tony whistled, which echoed in the hollow of the suit, "Voicemail, JARVIS."

Sounding as peeved as an AI could get, JARVIS said,  _"Very well, sir."_

And that was the end of that.

Or so Tony thought.

Two hours later, the alarms sounded. Great, wailing things that startled Tony into banging his head against the top of the car he was working on. He scrambled out from beneath it, greasy and dirty and scared out of his wits. The lights all around him flicked off, flushing the workshop in black.

 _"JARVIS!"_ He called out, dropping his wrench and flying up the stairs. "What's going on?"

 _"SHIELD is attempting to break in. I have truncated the power for now, leaving them trapped in the elevator. Should I warn-"_ JARVIS' voice scrambled off into some into something incomprehensible and radio-like.

The power flipped back on, and Tony was halfway up the steps.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much appreciated.


	9. Fury's Furor

There But For The Grace Of God Go I

Part IX: Fury's Furor

* * *

_a total stranger one black day  
knocked the living hell out of me-_

_e.e. cummings' "a total stranger one black day"_

* * *

The case.

He'd brought it as a precaution, a quote on quote  _preemptive strike, just in case,_ and now Tony needed to find it,  _quick,_ before-

The door slid open for him, and he was yanked back by the collar, slammed face-first into the adjacent wall. He grimaced, forced into it by the unknown entity, and all of a sudden he felt the unfamiliar and terrifyingly cold clink of metal around his wrists.

"Stark is detained." The SHIELD agent behind him spoke. Tony couldn't get a good glimpse of him. "Small resistance and-" The agent forced him over, opened his eyes with violating fingers. "No trace of any mind-control."

Tony ground out sarcastically, "You know, this is a little much for a first date. You could've at least brought some wine, maybe some cheese  _fondue."_

The agent paid him no attention, listening intently to the voice on the other end of his receiver. Even from here, Tony could distinguish Fury's growly, irritating tones. The agent's grip was harsh and terrible, like a bear trap, all those crushing fingers around his wrists.

"I copy that, sir." The agent said after a brief moment, wrenching Tony off the wall and towards the elevator. Two more agents seemed to appear from the shadows, settling guns back into their holsters.

Tony made no quips to them, only thought in quick, erratic and awful strands of thought that somewhere else in this tower, another agent was finding a God of Mischief by a window, another agent was maybe raising their gun and-

He truncated the thought before it went any further, cutting it off as easily as he could've cut hair.

"We should bag him." One of the other agents said. A woman.

The one with his hands all over Tony's wrists replied, "No. Fury said not to."

"You mean he didn't  _specify,"_ The agent shot back, thin-lipped and sneering. "He's helping a  _war criminal. Forget_ proper etiquette, he deserves none of it."

Tony, because he had a notorious reputation for being unable to keep his mouth shut, said, "I'd appreciate it if you bagged me actually. Your face is a little..." He swayed his head back and forth, in favor of the shaking hand motion that he could not, at present, do.

The agent's lips curled back even more, and her eyes switched to the man behind Tony.

"Bag him." He allowed, and all of a sudden there was  _black._

* * *

Fury was the first person he saw, when the bag was lifted off his head. Arms crossed and stance stiff and standing in front of him inside a room that seemed, for all intents and purposes, to be a jail cell. There wasn't any furnishings in there, except the uncomfortable metal chair that Tony filled.

His arms ached behind his back, and he quipped, "A call might've been nice. My office hours are still between eight and two every other Thursday."

That single eye narrowed, "I  _did_ call, Stark."

"Yeah, I suppose you did." Tony shrugged, which was difficult to do. "And what was that about? Tesseract traces?"

"It was about the war criminal that's shacked up in your tower." Fury loomed over him. "Suppose you wouldn't know anything about that, now would you?"

"What war criminal?" Tony queried, eyebrows raised. "All I've got in my tower is a refugee and some Norse god, and myself."

"Thor's gone." Fury said, and each word was serrated on the edges, inflexible in its tone. "Wouldn't put up much of a fight after Loki turned himself in. Didn't say anything either. And isn't that just...  _strange?"_

Tony laughed, shifted uncomfortably, jangling his handcuffs in search of a mistake, "Right. Don't lie to me, Fury. I know a lot more about this right now than you do."

 _That_ seemed to exasperate Fury, slap a sore spot, for his fingers dug into his arms and his eyebrows furrowed. Tony pulled at his handcuffs, searching and searching for a way out of them, though he knew there wouldn't be a way out of this. Yet. He just hoped that some of his well-worn charm would rub off on Fury.

"Who told you about all this?" Tony asked, tilting his head. There was a little bit of genuine curiosity there, though he figured it out in a heartbeat. "Wait, don't tell me? Romanov? _Knew_ I messed up somehow there."

Fury nodded, "She noticed you were acting off when she came to check up on you. Of course, it was only a matter of time before SHIELD figured the rest of it out. The Tesseract traces, your behavior, the activity in New Mexico..."

"Believe me, Fury," Tony said, then. "Keeping the angry, wounded god around for long wasn't a plan."

"Keeping him around at all should have never been a plan!" Fury snapped, leaning forward like he were going to strangle Tony. Tony wouldn't have blamed him for it if had, too. He was very strangle-able. "Do you understand what he  _did,_ Stark? The damage he's caused? He took our world and tilted it on its axis, do you  _understand?"_

Fury emphasized the last part of the sentence, pressed upon it with sheer vehemence, looking utterly... well,  _furious,_ and yet... Tony couldn't tell if there was anything deeper there, past the anger. Fury was as closed to him as a padlocked chest. As closed off to him as  _Loki_ was, as ironic as that seemed.

"Com-pren- _do,"_  Tony retorted, slowing down each syllable, like he were talking down to Fury. Well, up, from this vantage point. "But right now?" He shook his head. "You seen him? He's not fit to play Lincoln Logs with the world. Not anymore."

Fury's face loosened up, though his single eye still held Tony under serious scrutiny, "And just what did happen to Loki, Stark?" Fury paused, and added, "He finally get what was coming to him?"

"Get what was coming to him?" Tony echoed, hollowly. His insides writhed, and his body felt like someone had thrown a lit match to his bones. "Not sure anyone quite deserves what happened to him, Blackbeard. Not even by  _SHIELD's shitty standards."_

Fury shot him a look a disbelief, cast his gaze across all the room incredulously, like he couldn't believe what Stark had just said. What he had just given voice.

"Look on the bright side," Tony continued, feeling and sounding particularly prickly. "This is what you wanted right? Out of Thor? For someone else to do your dirty work? Well, congratu-fuckin'-lations!"

Tony tried to recline in the chair like he were in a throne, legs spread out stick-straight ahead of him and eyes trained on Fury, like maybe he could make the eye-patched man implode from it. With hope.

That eye returned to Tony then, with all its skepticism, "Thor and Loki did come to us peacefully, but there hasn't been a word out of either of them."

"Scarface won't talk about what happened to him," Tony supplied, watching Fury carefully and incisively, for any change in tone or stance or  _anything,_ really. "And Thor's only gonna give you the barest facts."

"I'm aware." Said Fury, and he uncrossed his arms. "Loki has a list of issues as long as my-"

"Nose?" Tony interjected just as Fury said, "Arm."

The glare he got in exchange for that remark was pointed indeed, but Tony just gave him his best stiff smile, eyebrows waggled.

"He trust you, Stark?"

"What?"

Fury leaned in then, a hand on his hip and his eye narrowed to a point, "I said, Does. He. Trust. You?"

"I expect a lot of bullshit outta you," Said Tony. "But  _that,_ that's going a little too far, even by your standards."

"You trust him," Fury said, and the words came out like slithering, oily snakes. "You're a little too quick to defend someone that tried to turn us all into his personal pets."

"Nah," Tony was smooth about it. "I'm just quick to defend someone that's... almost literally been to hell and back. Pardon me for personal decency."

"Considering your relationship with decency, Stark, you can excuse  _me_ for not associating you with it."

"You're excused. Just bring me with you."

The corner of Fury's lips twitched.

Tony spoke quickly and tartly, "Listen, the plan is to keep him around until he-"

Fury interrupted, "Turns the world into his sandbox again?"

Grinding his teeth, Tony continued, "Until he gets better."

He genuinely expected Fury to yell at him, to explode and to scream awful, bitter things at him about the greater good, or whatever, but instead the director put a hand to his forehead and let out a long, bland sigh that seemed to have a  _finality_ to it, if anything.

"You do anything to Loki," Tony said, definite in every word. "And Thor will make sure Asgard brings all its wrath onto Midgard. Fire in the rain and acidic water and all that apocalyptic  _noise."_

It was a threat, if anything else. Meaningless, maybe, but he wouldn't put it past Thor. No, he wouldn't have put it past him at all. It was almost depressing, that thought.

Fury mulled this over. Tony could almost see the machinations and manipulations working around in his head, like little physical cartoon cogs. But he could also see that the threat, meaningless as it was to Tony, was heavier on Fury. Because yeah, it did hold weight.

Tony wouldn't put it past Thor to break an entire world for Loki's safety. He wouldn't, and he couldn't and Fury was done thinking now, hands on his hips.

"We'll quarantine him in Stark Tower." Fury said, dead as could be. "But-"

"There's always a but, isn't there?" Tony sighed.

"But," Fury continued, sharper this time. "We'll call in the rest of the Avengers."

That, Tony hadn't expected.

"What?"

"Better safe than sorry, Stark." Was Fury's response, eyebrows drawn down. "We've been tracking their movements since the Battle of New York. Same as you."

"And here I thought I was special."

Fury laughed, slowly, "I'll pass it on to Thor." And he drew a ring of strangely tumbled keys from his coat pocket, jangled them around before uncuffing Tony.

Before he left, as Tony wrung the chafes around his wrist, Fury said, finally, "And Stark?"

"Yeah?"

"If this goes south, which it likely will," He inclined his head to the man behind him. "It's all on you."

* * *

Thor's eyes hadn't moved from the surveillance over his brother, Tony noticed. He looked as though he'd been rooted there, to the ground, in the center of SHIELD's New York headquarters. A great, bumbling and blond tree that worried overly-much.

"Anthony," Thor said, finally breaking the stare. SHIELD agents seemed to give him a wide berth. "I am told I have you to thank for... for my brother's sanctuary."

"Don't mention it." Tony replied, wrinkling his nose slightly. He had never been accustomed to a thanks of any kind. "Let's just hope I don't live to regret it, yeah?"

Those eyes of Thor's darkened, and he looked... well,  _stormy._ It made something hard form in Tony's throat.

"Yes." Thor said, the word unwieldy within itself. "I only hope that it may not come to... that."

"Fury tell you that he's calling in the rest of us?" Tony asked, switching up the subject. "For this?"

"My brother is in no shape to... cause this realm any more unrest. I do not understand why your director insists on calling on the Avengers." Thor crossed his arms, and a hurt look flashed across his face. "I... that is to say, I do not mean that it would not be good to see my friends again... however-"

"Not like this, right?" Tony felt like he were crawling towards something entirely chick-flicky and ludicrous, and he could only respond with spongy statements like, "It's all good."

Thor's eyes returned to the surveillance image, and the screen flickered. Loki's head turned up and if Tony hadn't known any better, he would have sworn that Loki were staring straight at him. Loki, with that battered body and harsh eyes. Loki, whose mere presence was Sturm und Drang.

Loki, who was unbearably like Tony, and whom Tony almost  _feared,_ daft as it seemed.

* * *

Tony visited Loki.

The visit itself was ill-advised, mostly by Fury and partly by Thor - Thor mentioned that Loki had gone with SHIELD as quietly and purposelessly as a dog, though not in those words.

Loki had been held in a holding cell not dissimilar to Tony's, minus Fury breathing in the air and the tied up thing and all.

"Leave me." Was the first sentence that came out of Loki.

"You sure you don't want any company?" Tony asked, pacing back and forth, though his eyes never left the still form in the center of the room. "I want some company."

Loki looked normal, for the most part, and Tony's eyes had scanned him up and down for visible bruises sans the mottled, old yellow ones from his previous experiences with captors. There was something utterly rigid about him, however. Arthritic.

"I am told you are to be my chaperone." Loki said, quietly. His eyes followed Tony around the room. "I do not trust you."

Tony's puzzlement must have shown on his face, for Loki continued, "You said you would not allow them to take me."

"I tried."

Loki exploded, abrasive and loud, "That is not good enough!"

Tony flinched, made his fear obvious, and Loki's face crumpled for a split-second before his lips broke into a maimed, rough smile. It was a shark's smile, a predator's.

Loki's voice was coarse, scratchy, "You fear me."

Tony made a pfft sound, and then, "In the same way I fear falling off a building. You can't hurt me."

That faux sadism faltered, just a little bit, and Loki's face  _changed._ It become something despondent and discordant all at once, furling in on itself like darkness in a sunrise.

"Go." Loki commanded.

And Tony, through traitorous feet, did as he was told.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are much appreciated!


	10. The Waking Dream

What's left of you

Is ash and urn and

This silent horizon

Puscifer - Horizons

* * *

Loki said nothing to Tony the entire ride back to the tower. Which was fine. Tony got it, he _understood._ And he didn't want to say a single thing to Loki either.

Whether that was because of the distinct feeling he had in his gullet that maybe, just maybe, Tony Stark would go ahead and live up to his reputation of being notoriously forthright when most people would've forsook the idea or... or because he did have a fear of Loki running ramrod straight down his back was up to loose interpretation.

Tony preferred the idea that he was applying what he'd learned in the past few days, which was:  _keep your thoughts to yourself._

If there was one thing the past days had taught him, it was that. And that's what he was doing. Being suspiciously silent. And if the silence piqued Loki's interest at all, the god didn't say anything of it. He was being reputably taciturn and voiceless and stared listlessly out through the tinted windows of one of SHIELD's terribly nondescript and slow cars.

Tony was itching to say something. The urge in his brain was as annoying as a mosquito bite.

But he kept to himself, despite all the unvoiced accusations and concerns, such as,  _"We could talk about this, you know? What you've built up. I know it, too. You've got walls, and they've come crashing down, and you're trying to build them all back up again."_

He found himself staring at the side of Loki's shorn hair, the rough angles of a face that didn't face him.

 _"I didn't have anyone to build me back up, you know."_ Tony thought, and the thoughts are foreign, indeed.  _"And shit, you've got a family. People that give a shit about you. And that's more than_ I  _ever had."_

Something angry and wrathful rose up in him, like a nebulae that had exploded inside of him, a wave of hatred that snatched dangerously at his heart.

Loki shifted in his spot, a slight, rustled movement. Tony let out a scoff.

 _"I pity the hell out of you, Reindeer Games."_ Tony stared out his own window, feeling suddenly and awfully despondent.  _"You don't have any idea what you've got. You're focusing on what you don't. And if that isn't the saddest sack of shit I've ever heard..."_

Tony let the thought fade out, felt all at once like he'd betrayed some deeper half of himself.

And when they returned to Stark Tower, Loki fled to his rooms without a single word.

* * *

There were nightmares again.

These were a tad different than his recent ones. He was running, from something, something with large hands and scabby eyes, feeling entirely as thought something  _big_ were on his tail. Something ferocious with snarled dagger teeth.

It had its hands around his throat when he woke up, and his bedroom was spinning, spinning, spinning.

"Here." Came a voice entirely unfamiliar to him. But he placed the voice when he sat up.

"Thought you were hating me." Tony said, words slurring up midway. Loki held out something in a dark thermos that made Tony feel entirely uneasy. "What's this?"

"It is a tea brewed from wormwood and valerian." Loki explained, as if the explanation were enough. He avoided Tony's gaze, suspiciously. "For that which plagues you."

"Great." Tony replied with sarcasm in each vowel. He took the thermos regardless. "Dope tea from a man whose greatest accomplishment was attempting to burn down Manhatten. Seems like a sound plan. Totally foolproof."

"I took the time to think on our previous conversation." Loki said, and the words sounded surprisingly rehearsed, collected, with a bit of tacit just beneath. "You're wrong."

Tony didn't say anything, feeling the warmth beneath his hands.

Loki took his silence as acceptance, "You didn't try. But you did keep me from Agent Romanov before. And I said I owed you a debt."

"And I said to cram it up your ass." Tony pursed his lips.

Loki turned his gaze unto Tony, wide-eyed and yet fierce beneath it all, "I keep my promises, and my debts. Regardless of whether they were made or not."

There was a pause there, an accusation just beneath it, too, and Tony knew that. But he brought the tea to his lips.

It tasted like molten shit and swallowing it was a lot like gargling gravel, and Tony couldn't quite decide whether or not it was the worst thing he had ever drunk. The face he must have made drew out the stoniest laugh from Loki, brought the slightest of crinkles to his eyes.

"What's in that, again?" Tony questioned, thumb pressed to his lip in a weak attempt to not hurl.

"Wormwood and valerian." Loki supplied, sounding more clipped and annoyed than anything else. "It grows on Midgard. Your women once foolishly used it as a contraceptive."

"I bet that worked wonders." Tony replied, working the lingering stench in his throat.

"Wonders is perhaps the worst term for it." Loki said, and he stood. "I will make myself scarce."

"What, you don't wanna talk?" Tony said, all snide now. "That's how you are, huh? Love 'em and leave 'em."

Loki was at the doorframe, back facing Tony and he did hesitate, just a bit.

"I have nothing I would like to say to you, Stark." And that was that, and he was gone.

What happened next was bizarre. The room seemed to flicker a bit, black and whorled and entirely too much like his whole bedroom had begun to mimic a Van Gogh painting. And then he was out, like a switch.

It was the first dreamless sleep that Tony had had in years.

* * *

Steve was the first.

"Stark." Was his stern, almost gruff greeting. Tony had met him at the elevator, toting a cup of coffee and a burgeoning feeling of a good night's sleep. Two things which were the pinnacle of happiness.

Steve Rogers, on the other hand, looked a great deal like he hadn't slept at all.

"Didn't sleep tight, oh captain, my captain?" Tony asked, as Steve stepped in with all his luggage. The captain's eyes surveyed the room quickly and briefly, catching sight of all its deadly, dastardly furnishings, such as the coffee maker and the microwave and the table.

"Where is he?" Steve retorted, looking deeply uncomfortable with the entire situation.

"Avoiding Thor." Was Tony's reply.

"It might be better to keep an eye on him," Steve said, quickly. "In case he pulls anything."

"I've got it under control. JARVIS is keeping me updated." Which, JARVIS really wasn't. But he knew better than Steve did. "Fury give you the whole rundown?"

And  _there_ was where Steve truly looked distressed.

"Yeah, I..." He shifted from foot to foot, looking almost... itchy. "Fury told me everything he knows. Like how you kept him under the radar before SHIELD got wind of it. It's... this whole situation is between the devil and the deep blue sea, and that's the way I see it, at least."

Tony was almost slightly surprised. Pleasantly, at least.

"Glad to have your approval." He said, with a slap on Steve's arm. "I was pretty sure this was going to awkward and unpleasant fast."

"I'm not blind to Fury-"

"Half-blind, maybe." Tony interrupted, with a little insensitivity. "But whatever, it's water under the bridge. You know when the rest of us are coming? ETA's and all that?"

Steve looked a little sour, all stiff postures and stern eyes, with his ridiculous vintage duffel bag and parted hair and Tony felt just the tiniest bit guilty for yanking him out of whatever he was doing just for babysitting duty.

But, hey, it wasn't all his fault. Not at all.

"Agent Romanov and Barton..." Steve straightened up a bit. "Well, Agent Romanov, at least... she'll be next, I think. Thor's here, already, but you knew that. Which means Dr. Banner won't be a few days, at the least."

"A few days?" Tony asked, heart sinking already. "What? We interrupt his vacation in the Bahamas or something? He taking time to suck on a Long Island and get a nice tan on some balmy beach and all that?"

"Pathein, actually. Up to his old digs." Steve answered, with a nod. "SHIELD's still trying to find him."

And there, yeah, Tony felt like absolute, fermented shit. Bruce was being pulled out God knew where to play patty-cake with... well,  _Loki._

"You wanna drink?" Tony queried, already half-ambling along to the wet bar in the corner of the room. Steve followed him. "For the nerves?"

"I can't get drunk, Stark." Replied Steve, sounding partially wistful. "It's a lost cause."

Tony shrugged once again, pouring a tumbler of Bourbon straight into a glass, and said, "Damn shame, Cap. But Fury told you what  _he_ knows." And he settled down on the loveseat, and Steve took the spot beside him. "And I'll tell you what  _I_ know."

And he did, the whole damn thing, with all the angry commentary attached to it.

* * *

Steve had responded to the story almost exactly how Tony thought he would: Dignified, restrained anger. A dash of pity and a sprinkle of guilt. And all of it added up to a grand jumble of,  _what now?_

Which was good, yeah. Because that was the general consensus among the people involved.

 _"What do we do now?"_ and all of that had a lot of awful parameters like:  _can't give Loki to Thor, can't give Loki to Asgard, can't set Loki loose, etc._

And Steve knew that, and even if he didn't, Tony would've told him. Would've told him in the same way he told Thor,  _"You're not taking him."_

But even Tony didn't know what to do with Loki. And he doubted that even  _Loki_ knew what to do with Loki.

So when Steve was settled in his room, he went and searched for Loki.

Why and for what reason was lost to him, and he didn't even bother knocking because part of him  _knew,_ just a little bit, that Loki wasn't going to be awake. He was right, of course. The door creaked open and there was Loki at the foot of his bed, one leg curled up to his chest and the other leisurely splayed out ahead of him.

There were papers all around, and Tony tiptoed around them.

"Stark." Loki greeted, sending a small, flickering glance of acknowledgment upwards at Tony. "Have you any need of me?"

"Thanks." Tony replied, and he took notice that the papers were scraps torn out of books. English, with scrawled notes in runic in the margins. "You know, for the weed-tea or whatever it was."

Loki hesitated, noticeably, "You are most welcome." Though his tone indicated that Tony was anything but.

"You tearing up my books?" And Tony bent down to retrieve a scrap from the ground. He recognized it, actually.  _The Bell Jar._ The book he'd used as scrap paper when he was trying to talk to Loki when talking was something he couldn't... well,  _do._

And he said, aloud, quoting,  _"The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along. I simply hadn't thought about it."_

"I can figure out the reading for myself," Loki hissed, with a sudden white-hot anger in his voice. "There's no need for you to read aloud for me."

Tony's eyes scanned the paper, the circled words and underlined phrases, all the hand-written postmarks and scratched out thought-lines.

"Looks like you're having a bit of trouble." Tony remarked. "How about a favor for a favor?"

Loki's eyes wandered up to him, skin half-alive almost in the darkness, and Tony felt a sudden  _fist_ in his gullet, a kind of twisty thing that made him want to run out of there as quick as possible. That feeling came as quickly as it went.

"A favor," Loki echoed, as though he were tasting each word. "For a favor."

"You need something to do while you figure all," Tony made a hand gesture, tapping the top of the paper. " _This_ out, right? I need some nice, quiet dreamless sleep. So how about it? I teach you to read and write in English, and you brew me up witch-doctor voodoo hoodoo?"

Loki broke off the stare, looking aimlessly about the piles of papers around him. For a brief moment, Tony was sure he'd reject the offer, turn it down with an insult to boot.

But instead, Loki did what he did best - going beyond expectations: "Very well."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are appreciated.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is appreciated.


End file.
